TAKEAWAY
Dan Loftus
2026SpeosxMagnum
There are over 60,000 active food delivery couriers working within France, the majority being foreign nationals working while undocumented due to the difficulties of finding legitimate employment under such status.The people who deliver these meals are often overlooked and underappreciated, reduced to being a fleeting face that is briefly interacted with during a handoff of goods.They are not seen as individuals, but rather a collective force that magically makes food appear within the hour it was requested.They keep a vast amount of society living in convenience, despite sacrificing their own comfort for little compensation.
The ones who sought safety and shelter from persecution found it, glad to be alive and well, and that was enough for them.Those who traveled under the guise of France being a land of milk and honey felt cheated, duped into working long hours for little pay, and having to share single bedroom apartments with four to six other men.
I investigated this phenomenon by interviewing and photographing these individuals throughout the streets of Paris during the late hours in which there is the highest volume of orders and couriers racing between restaurants and homes. Most of the men I spoke with originated from Bangladesh and North African countries, either fleeing from a corrupt and abusive government, or simply searching for work with better pay and living conditions.
While the couriers were always very willing to speak about any topic ranging from their family and personal lives, to politics and football, far less were willing to be photographed. Only with the promise of anonymity were they comfortable in having their picture taken. Using flash to over expose the faces of the subjects was found to be an agreeable degree of anonymity, while also creating a visual cohesiveness for the portraiture series that is illustrative of the concept of a faceless group of people that move through our cities like apparitions, and yet have a profound impact on the quality of the average citizen's life, without acknowledgement.
“You want the truth about the life of a delivery driver? It’s shit. It really is shit.”
“We are
doing
this
work
mainly because
we can’t find work in restaurants or any other place.
Only those who have papers here can do ID, and we work by renting their ID, in which case we have to pay them 30 to 35 percent”
“This work is not intended to make our lives better, it is just being done to get by”
“I came from Ramna hoping for a better life, but it wasn’t what I had originally thought it would be”
“It is becoming very dangerous for us. There are people who make orders so they can attack and rob
us. My friend lost his bike, his phone, and even his helmet and jacket. It happen with three or four of my friends”
“If
French government say ‘Everyone with no papers must leave or we shoot you’, you will see that not a single person leaves, everyone stays”
“Show this to Macron and tell him the one thing we want is to have our own Uber ID without paper”
“Next time I see you bring me a nuclear bomb for me to drop on Paris”
“We have no health insurance, many crazy drivers, if we get hurt what can we do?”
“To come from Bangladesh to France cost about 20,000 to 30,000 Euro”
“From Turkey, I came inside Greece.Two police hands up me. I think they have contract.You understand? The police know.They have connection.The police is waiting for me.They put handcuffs. Some place after they change, they give, they open our handcuffs.They give another taxi.”
“I would like to give some message. When the rainy days come, when the snow come, minus degrees weather come in Paris, it's so difficult for us to give the delivery to the customer. It's very dangerous. Also the road, it's not safe for the scooter, you know. The car, the bus, they don't care so much about us. So it's so much for us. We survive a lot to give the order to the customer. But they have to be respectful for us. Most of them are good. Most of them, especially the French people, they're very good. They're very good. They are classic people. They do respect.”
“Already the French government give us a lot of opportunity to work here, to earn money. I don't have a lot more expectations for the French government. Just make sure we give us the permission to work in France and the safety issue”
“Give more priority to the rider than the customer. Because they can't survive without us”