Hard to see how a company can imagine it can do business in a country and not follow that country’s record keeping laws and be subject to criminal and civil statutes in that country.
You shouldn't really be able to have it both ways, should you?
Unless there is some international law or treaty mandating that?
Preventing access to your accounts during an audit is quite fishy, especially for an onsite audit without warning which, in France, is supposed to happen only if the authorities have doubts that you could make some evidences disappear. During an audit, the CEO is supposed to provide the documents, the inspectors are not supposed to access your files themselves I think.
(So blocking access for security reasons is bullshit, to answer someone else, the right thing to do is to have all the pieces in order for when an audit happens anyway)
Clearly in this case Uber got a superior authority to do so, and in any future case that will still be a likely possibility.
Nor is it likely.
All the accounting, insurance, banking, regulatory, etc… paperwork legally necessary for even a large company in France can easily fit in a set of binders that fit in a single bookcase.
So it’s literally possible for all of it to be ready and available for inspection before anyone even touches a keyboard. And in fact that was the case for every company in France pre 1960s.