Several months ago, Cosmin, a 23 year-old Romanian national, signed up to France’s ‘civic service’ scheme, under which French and EU nationals aged between 16 and 25 carry out missions that serve the public interest. At the time, he lived in a hut in a makeshift camp of fellow Roma gypsies situated in Champs-sur-Marne, in the south-west outer suburbs of Paris.
On January 28th, he attended a training course in the capital with an association dedicated to helping the homeless, called les Enfants du canal, and which was part of his ‘civic service’ programme.
On his way home late in the afternoon, Cosmin (an adopted name) took the RER suburban express train to Noisy-Champs, from where he would pick up a bus to take him to Lognes-le-Village, close to the camp that was then his home. He was with two other young Roma men. What happened next is now the subject of an investigation by France’s citizen’s rights watchdog, the Défenseur des droits.
Cosmin told Mediapart that the bus, which serves the 213 line, was already pulled up outside the station, its doors closed. The driver waited for other passengers to gather at the bus stop before letting people on board at about 6 p.m. “We let [the other passengers] past and when I wanted to climb aboard the bus the driver said, in these terms, ‘Romanians go by foot, they don’t get on the bus’,” he said. “I argued with the driver, showing him my Navigo [commuter travel] card. I had every right to get on like anybody else but the driver didn’t see it that way.”
Cosmin has shown Mediapart a photocopy of his valid January Navigo card (see below), a prepaid smartcard travel pass for passengers using the Paris transport system.
Cosmin filed a complaint with the police a few days after the incident. In his accompanying statement he said: “The bus driver was aggressive and he said these words: ‘I don’t care’, you could have two Navigo passes, you won’t get on my bus’. I again explained to the driver that the bus was public transport, so I had the right to get on board just like anybody.”
Cosmin’s statement claimed the driver then responded by saying ‘the bus is not public, you, you are dirty, dirty Romanians, I don’t like your faces, and I take who I want on board my bus’, and then adding: ‘Dirty Romanians, you’re like dogs’.
“Finally, he was so worked up that he made everybody get off the bus, he closed the doors and then stood facing the door,” Cosmin’s statement continued. “Finally, we left, seeing access to the bus was impossible.”
Shortly after the incident, the young Romanian also recounted the scene to his civic service tutor, François Loret, a member of an association dedicated to providing help to the Roma population in the local area where Cosmin lives, the Val-Maubuée. Loret immediately protested to the Paris transport authority, the RATP, by email, noting that such incidents were “recurrent” on the buses serving the Val-Maubuée area. “The fact that one has a transport pass would [apparently] no longer suffice to be able to use public transport, now one has to be able to justify belonging to an ethnic group that is in keeping with the unsavoury beliefs of some of your staff?”, Loret wrote, adding that the incident involving Cosmin had been reported to the Défenseur des droits.
One week later, in the absence of any reply, Loret went to the Noisy-Champs RER station to post notices appealing for witnesses to the incident (see below) and also to speak to the drivers about the problem. While he was there, a Roma family tried boarding a bus. “And there, it was the same thing again,” Loret told Mediapart. “They wanted to get on the bus and they were refused access. The driver saw I was taking a photo. He called the RATP security who, themselves, called the police, and in the end I was forced to remove the photo from my camera.”
Loret finally received a response from the RATP on March 1st, in an email signed by an employee in its customer service department, in which she assured him that the drivers of the 213 bus line had been “reminded” of their duties. “An important monitoring [operation] is currently underway,” she wrote, adding that she “regretted this situation”.
It was not the first time that Loret had had cause to complain to the RATP about the conduct of its staff. One year earlier, he contacted the transport authority over the regular practice by drivers of the RER suburban express trains of sounding their horns as they passed by a Roma camp near the tracks. The camp has since been evacuated.
Loret told Mediapart that since the incident involving Cosmin, a Roma woman was ordered off another bus on the 213 line by a driver, this time at a stop at the Chelles railway station. The recurrent events prompted the vice-president of the Greater Paris regional council, Pierre Serne, who is also in charge of transport issues, to write to the chairman of the RATP, Pierre Mongin. In his letter dated March 10th, Serne demanded a response to the “grave events” that were reported to him. Meanwhile, witnesses to the incident involving Cosmin have come forward and confirm that the driver used discriminatory language. The Défenseur des droits has now asked the public prosecutor’s office for authorisation to consult the CCTV footage recorded at the station.
An official of the CGT trades union branch that represents RATP bus workers told Mediapart that he and other union colleagues had been informed that “in some bus depots” there was an unhealthy climate. “Drivers aren’t more racist than the rest of the population, but we can’t deny there are off-limit incidents,” said the official, whose name is withheld. He referred to a recent petition sent around by some RATP drivers denouncing a supposed insecurity caused by the presence of Roma on the buses. “At the CGT, we reacted by informing drivers that this appeal for signatures was racist,” he said, while underlining that drivers often faced difficult and stressful situations. "The working conditions of drivers are difficult. We’re subjected to stress, to incivilities, to the pressure brought by the company. But whatever the context, nothing justifies discriminatory behaviour. In certain cases, the driver can ask passengers to get off if he considers they represent a threat, a danger for him or other passengers. People who are aggressive, drunk, armed or who transport objects that are too large can be refused access. But once again, nothing justifies racist language. In the case referred to on the 213 line, if the driver felt threatened he should have contacted security by activating what we call a ‘discreet alarm’.”
Contacted by Mediapart earlier this month, the RATP’s press office did not contest the validity of Cosmin’s testimony, and said that “a reminder of the rules” had been issued to staff. “It appears very difficult to know exactly what happened on this [bus] line,” commented a press officer. “An investigation is currently underway and we are at the disposition of those who are leading it to respond in all transparency. In any event, if proved true, the behaviour referred to would be contrary to the values and the ethical code of our company, and also regarding the regulations that RATP bus drivers must adhere to.” Staff at the bus depot that serves the 213 line had been reminded of these regulations, added the press officer, and more precisely that “should be accepted on board buses any passenger carrying a valid transport pass”.
The RATP press office agreed to transmit Mediapart’s invitation to the drivers implicated in the reported incidents to be interviewed about the events. No reply was received before this article was published.
Meanwhile, at dawn on March 13th, the makeshift camp where Cosmin lived at Champs-sur-Marne was evacuated by riot police and subsequently razed to the ground.
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- The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse