the work stoppage of a bus driver attacked last month contested by Keolis
A driver of a TCL bus was attacked last month in Lyon. But Keolis, his employer, is contesting his 3-day work stoppage.
Marie-Ange is still traumatized. This bus driver was the victim of an assault on November 6 in Lyon.
A public transport user, unhappy that the bus door is closing on him, copiously insulted her. “He accused me of having done it on purpose, so he started calling me names and he punched my dashboard”, confides the driver at the microphone of BFM Lyon.
“I took out my tear gas canister and he backed off”, continue the latter on our antenna.
Despite the intervention of security, Marie-Ange affirms that the man does not calm down. The woman therefore decides to film the scene. On the video, we can see two security guards interpose themselves between the individual and the front door of the vehicle driven by Marie-Ange. “You have an unacceptable behavior, sir!”, declares one of them to the user.
“No, no, she crushed the door on my nose,” the latter shouts back in the witness video.
After the altercation, the user would have placed himself in front of the car, a stone in his hand. Panicked, Marie-Ange then contacts the police.
“They blame me […] for endangering the lives of my passengers”
Despite requests from the security post, the driver, in shock, refuses to resume service after the incident, and this is precisely what Keolis, her employer, accuses her of.
In a document, the company questions his accident at work. “This is the report that my box gave me. Basically, they accuse me of having filmed the attack, of having called the police and of having endangered the lives of my passengers”, advances the driver of the bus on our antenna.
Marie-Ange has already suffered several attacks during her service. In 2020, she even got punched in the face and had several bruises and bruises. Today, the driver is afraid to return to work, to “go to work with a ball in her stomach, fear in her stomach”.
“Many bus drivers at TCL in Lyon have worked in these conditions of fear, because I find that nothing is being done to protect bus drivers. We are left to our own devices”, denounces Marie-Ange at the microphone of BFM Lyon.
To resolve the situation, Marie-Ange called in a lawyer. For its part, Keolis evokes an internal problem and did not wish to give more details.