Shimon Peres travelled to Paris’s Gare du Nord on March 8 for discussions relating to the Middle East peace process. It is claimed that black and North African workers were discriminated against in efforts to ensure that “no Muslim employees … welcome the Head of the State of Israel”.
The SUD-Rail statement called on SNCF to publicly condemn the incident as “unacceptable”.
Gare du Nord has a large number of workers from an ethnic minority in its workforce, many of whom live in the suburbs of Paris.
SNCF initially blamed the discrimination on “security protocol” advised by the French Interior Ministry and the Israeli Embassy in Paris, but this has been emphatically denied by both.
Instead, the order came from SNCF management, with a spokesman for the state-run company pledging “a full investigation”.
It is also asserted that other workers were impeded from carrying out their duties because of decisions based on their appearance:
Autres faits, un contrôleur se serait vu interdire l’accès à la voiture où se trouvait Shimon Peres du seul fait de sa couleur de peau, l’homme étant métis et un conducteur d’origine maghrébine à qui on aurait interdit de traverser la zone où se trouvait le ministre n’aurait pas pu rejoindre son train.
Of course some are using this story as a way of attacking Israel, but that does not invalidate the concerns being voiced about this matter.
Update: The SNCF denies the allegations
But the railway giant on Monday denied the allegations, saying it had received no requests from Peres’s entourage nor from the French foreign ministry to assist with the Israeli delegation.
It did not “give out such orders to its contractor for baggage handlers, the firm Itiremia”, the SNCF told AFP.
According to SUD, officials at a committee that monitors working conditions at Itiremia called a special meeting over the alleged incident, after which the internal probe was launched.
