AFP
MARSEILLE, FRANCE, 28 August 2012: Low-cost Irish airline Ryanair has been ordered to appear in court to answer a string of charges of alleged breaches of French labour law, lawyers representing a pilots’ union said on Monday.
State prosecutors have concluded a three-year investigation by charging the airline with a number of illegal practices, including registering workers employed in France as Irish employees, preventing workplace councils from functioning and preventing access to unions.
The trial, which is expected to take place around the turn of the year, will be held in Aix-en-Provence, near where Ryanair operated a base at the airport of Marseille before it abandoned the facility in January 2011.
Ryanair closed the hub, where it began operating in 2006, and cut 13 routes from Marseille to Europe and Morocco, after prosecutors refused to drop the charges against the company.
Contacted by AFP, Ryanair’s French lawyer Marc-Antoine Levy declined to comment.
At the time of Ryanair’s withdrawal from Marseille, the airline’s head Michael O’Leary had argued that the company should have the right to employ its staff in Ireland, where payroll taxes are significantly lower than in France, as they were not living permanently in France.
That argument was considered and rejected by France’s Council of State in 2007.
Categories: Aviation, Europe, News
Tags: Airlines, Court, Labour
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