A school bus driver in Haute-Vienne, who used to drop off schoolchildren in front of their homes for security reasons, was dismissed for serious misconduct by his employer.
As revealed by the regional daily The People of the Centerthe company Europ Voyages, the new holder of the public contract in the Billanges sector, a town of 300 inhabitants, accuses him of having made so-called “wild” stops, different from those planned on his route, in this rural area.
“Inconceivable to let children take risks”
The employer also calls into question the behavior of the employee to explain his decision. “When I asked him not to bring the children home anymore, he insulted me. He did not respect the relationship of subordination, ”says Maxime Trossat, manager of the company.
But for the driver as for the parents concerned, it was a question of the safety of the children who would have had, otherwise, to walk on the edge of roads considered dangerous, in particular at night.
“It was inconceivable to let the children take risks”, explained the ex-driver, in activity for seventeen years according to The People of the Center. “It didn’t make me change my route. These practices were tolerated in the past, ”adds the one who wants to seize the prud’hommes.
The mother of a schoolgirl “revolted” by this dismissal
“My daughter, a 12-year-old schoolgirl, had to do 650 meters in the dark on a municipal road, without sidewalks or markings on the ground. She had to walk in the ditches to get home, ”testified Christelle Nozière, a resident of Billanges who plans to file a complaint for endangering the lives of others. “We could trust him [au chauffeur] children with their eyes closed. To dismiss someone for that, it revolts me”.
In the columns of the regional daily, the mayor of the town is surprised by this dismissal, evoking “a serious and responsible professional, himself a father. If he has taken initiatives, it is in the interest of the children. »