24, Deliveroo courier, Mulhouse, 8 August 2019.

The Rebberg. It is there, on the heights of Mulhouse, in eastern France, that everything changes on 8 August 2019. A 24-year-old man is riding his bike down the Chanteclair path. On his back, a turquoise box bag reads Deliveroo. It is 2.30pm.

Mourad Bouhichecha does not know it yet, but this will be his last run. A few moments later, the wheel skids, the handlebars twist. The fall is brutal, his head hits the asphalt. The head injury is severe. A man’s life has just been turned upside down in the most upmarket district of this working-class town.

One of his colleagues speaks.

“Mourad was the best of us. The most liked, too. Customers, restaurant owners, colleagues... everyone loved him.”

His eyes cloud over as he talks about the man he had known for five years.

Having joined the Deliveroo platform barely two months before his accident, Mourad had quickly found his feet, a few months after setting up as a self-employed micro-entrepreneur.

The young man had made racing against the clock his daily routine. “He’d had a few problems and he was doing everything he could to get back on his feet,” says Sullyvan¹, who prefers not to go into detail. “He worked, worked, worked.” The repetition sounds like the beat of a relentless clock.

To understand the tragedy unfolding that August day, you have to go back a few days. Deliveroo has just changed its pay scale. All over France, couriers cry betrayal: 30 to 50% less pay by their own calculations. Short runs, the most profitable, are now paid less. The British company claims to be rewarding long distances, the ones couriers avoid because they pay so little.

Anger is building. In Paris, the CLAP 75 collective organises rallies. There is talk of a boycott, of a strike. In Mulhouse too, the shock wave is felt.

“Since the rates went down, he was more stressed,” says Sullyvan, who has himself had several minor falls. “I wouldn’t say he rode dangerously, but he was really stressed. And when you ride in that state, it’s bound to happen that a courier has an accident.”

The stress does not come only from the new rates. Two days before his fall, Mourad had to wait 56 minutes outside a restaurant. In a job paid per delivery, a wait like that is pure loss. “Deliveroo has ways of forcing restaurants to manage their waiting times,” Sullyvan says bitterly. “We’re allowed to turn down an order, but if we turn them all down, we end up not doing any orders at all. And that’s something we can’t afford.”

Take it or leave it. Speed up or get poorer. Risk your life or lose your livelihood. That is the daily dilemma of couriers in the platform economy.

First taken to the Émile Muller hospital in Mulhouse, Mourad is quickly transferred to the intensive care unit of the Pasteur hospital in Colmar. His condition requires specialist care. Coma, paralysis of his limbs and lung complications follow one after another.

Meanwhile, the Deliveroo machine gets busy on the communications front. “It is a terrible and tragic accident,” says a spokesperson. The company promises to cover medical costs, to compensate the days spent in hospital, and to pay compensation for the injuries. Words that cost nothing.

Leïla, another courier close to Mourad, makes no secret of her scepticism. “This job is very hard and I don’t think we realise what we’re signing when we fill in this partnership service contract... There’s nothing behind it, no unemployment benefit, no insurance. We are 100% independent, in a partnership-service arrangement.”

Against all odds, Mourad comes out of his coma. A fleeting hope. His loved ones fear he will remain paralysed for life.

In March 2020, as the whole world begins to tip into the Covid-19 crisis, the hospitals of Mulhouse are among the first to be overwhelmed. With no room left in intensive care, Mourad is transferred to the Centre de réadaptation de Mulhouse, a rehabilitation centre. Five days later, on 18 March, his heart stops. Seven months after his fall, Mourad Bouhichecha dies at 24.

The promise to cover his medical costs? Never kept, according to accounts gathered by the press. His family reportedly never received a penny.

On the day of his funeral, several couriers formed a silent guard of honour at the entrance to the cemetery in Mulhouse. Their bikes lined up, their delivery bags set down on the ground.