Paris bus driver hailed a hero for kicking off ALL passengers after they refused to make room for wheelchair user

[DGRossetti]

www.standard.co.uk/news/world/paris-bus-driver-hailed-for-kicking-all-passengers-off-after-they-refused-to-make-room-for-a3977531.html

Paris bus driver hailed a hero for kicking off ALL passengers after they refused to make room for wheelchair user

A French driver has been praised for kicking every single passenger off his bus after they failed to make room for a man in a wheelchair.

Francois Le Berre, who has multiple sclerosis, was waiting to get on a bus in a Paris suburb, but none of the passengers would move to allow him space.

The bus driver, who has not been named, noticed the problem and took the unprecedented step of asking every single passenger to leave the bus.

He then allowed Mr Le Berre to come on board and drove off with him as the sole passenger.

A tweet describing the incident was shared by a group called “Accessible Pour Tous” – which translates as ‘accessible for all’ on behalf of Mr Le Berre.

It read: “Yesterday while waiting for the bus in Paris, nobody wanted to move themselves. As no one was moving the driver stood up and said ‘Terminating! Everybody off!’ After he came to see me and said ‘you can go up and the others, you wait for the next one!’”

It has been shared more than 5,000 times and ‘liked’ by more than 10,000 people, with many congratulating the bus driver and criticising the passengers who failed to move.

“Bravo to the bus driver, but shame on the passengers,” wrote one person.

But another responded: “You wouldn’t have moved either.”

Buses in the French capital normally have one or two spaces for a wheelchair, and passengers are supposed to give priority to them and allow users to get on.

I couldn't help but notice this comment below the article:

Horseman4 16 hours ago
Any London bus driver who tried this would probably be beaten to death by entitled Mumsnet mummies with brat trolley

Clearly 'horseman' has never visited an AIBU thread on this issue...

I did smile, wryly.

It's an interesting contrast to the story a while back when passengers acted to make a point on a plane deporting an immigrant (Sweden ?).

Sadly - "Horseman" aside, the comments are pretty spot on. Any driver trying that nonsense in the UK would find himself looking for a new job pretty pronto. Luckily, it's unlikely to happen in the UK as most wheelchair users have got the message by now.

As has been discussed twenty billion times on MN people who dont give priority to wheelchairs users are gits. However this doesnt stop Horsemanan being an utter misogynist.

He's referring to 'brat trolleys' + pushchairs, and people with them who don't budge up (seen all too often, unfortunately)

I think the French bus driver is absolutely right

As has been discussed twenty billion times on MN people who dont give priority to wheelchairs users are gits. However this doesnt stop Horsemanan being an utter misogynist.

I didn't see where they stated their gender ?

Although on reflection, I guess misogyny is an equal ops arseholery ?

Well done that bus driver

Standing ovation for that bus driver.

Well he called them Munsnet mummies, obviously language is er flexible at the moment but the last time I looked that meant women.

Yes looking down on "mummies" counts as misogyny and some awful people do use mumsnet as a smear regardless of their lack of actual knowledge about the site. But bravo to the bus driver, I bet this wasn't the first time people on his bus wouldn't move and he'd finally just had enough.

having seen the awful wheelchairs on busses threads, they have a point.
good on the bus driver.

I'm not sure how all the passengers were causing problems? Yes the ones in the disabled space but what were the others doing wrong, how could their moving help?

I absolutely support kicking off someone who won't give up disabled spaces btw.

Highly unfair on the passengers that were sitting in the normal chairs though? Not like the wheelchair user could have used their seats.

By all means kick off those using the priority seats, but a massive overreaction to kick off all the other paying customers

Maybe the bus is configured so that all of the seats flip up and are potentially wheelchair friendly?

Anyway, bravo to that man. And can I just say that I recently braved the London Underground in my wheelchair and everyone was most helpful. Londoners are obviously nicer than Parisians.

"It's an interesting contrast to the story a while back when passengers acted to make a point on a plane deporting an immigrant (Sweden ?)."

The reality of these (in fact two stories, which you have conflated) is different from the superficial.

The first, a Swedish student stopping the deportation of an Afghan asylum seeker. www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/25/swedish-student-plane-protest-stops-mans-deportation-afghanistan

This was orchestrated, and in fact the intended target was not on the plane. www.dw.com/en/the-man-whose-deportation-elin-ersson-tried-to-prevent/a-44841129

The second, a Turkish airlines plane from England, where multiple passengers acted to stop the deportation of someone who turned out to be a gang rapist paedophile. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6273199/Somali-man-deportation-stopped-good-plane-passengers-revealed-gang-rapist.html

So neither case could really be considered an example, in that in the first the activist had bought a ticket EXPRESSLY to disrupt the deportation (albeit not the one that she thought she was disrupting), so this was by no means a spontaneous act, and in the second, had the passengers known the truth rather than the deportee's protestations, they would have likely have favoured pushing him out the door from 30,000 feet above preventing his deportation.

“By all means kick off those using the priority seats, but a massive overreaction to kick off all the other paying customers”

Saying the service was terminated was probably the fastest way for everyone. The able bodied could quickly hop on the next bus. Drivers get abuse and objections if they try and police individual or small groups of passengers and often have to wait for reinforcements anyway.

It’s all all very well in an ideal world.

Maybe next time the other passengers sitting, no doubt looking out the window or at phones to avoid the issue, will actually assist and ask other passengers to move.

Presumably any of the passengers could have got out to help to make room, even if they were sitting down. Seems a fair enough response by the driver.