EasyJet Offices Raided by French Police
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When flybe had bases in France the staff were initially working on UK contracts until the French courts found out. Flybe were fined 1 million euro's for contravening French law and subsequently had to set up a French company and employed all France based staff on French contracts.
When Flybe pulled out of France it cost the company a fortune in redundancy payments. Its not easy to lay off French workers. Easyjet BEWARE. Your treading on dodgy ground.
When Flybe pulled out of France it cost the company a fortune in redundancy payments. Its not easy to lay off French workers. Easyjet BEWARE. Your treading on dodgy ground.
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Then again, it's typical French attitude: if the rules suit us, then fine; otherwise, we'll just ignore them
What did the Public Prosecutor really expect to achieve by organising an Untouchables-style raid at easyjet ORY (apart from the sick satisfaction of having his 15 minutes of fame)? Since when do you need Gendarmes to enforce labour law? I can't imagine that a more civilised request wouldn't have yielded the same result. I can't imagine either such an unnecessary show of force by the UK CAA. Welcome to the EU's only banana republic.
Cheers
P.S.: I am French - and ashamed of such arrogant behaviour, which only serves to reinforce all the usual cliches about the French.
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My comments are Page 4....
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...13#post1797413
Talking about Flybe at the time, but this is all fairly predictable....
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...13#post1797413
Talking about Flybe at the time, but this is all fairly predictable....
Last edited by Hussar 54; 16th Dec 2006 at 00:45. Reason: Sorry, do not know how to insert the link....
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I fully agree with FougaMagister,
I'm French too, and when I had to convert my ICAO licence in the EU, the natural choice wasn't France...and it was pure fortune that I found a pilot job there, but I'll soon have a chance to make the right choice...
I have nothing more to say about the French authorities investigating @ EZY offices but they all are a bunch of muppets making a shame of themselves...
I'm French too, and when I had to convert my ICAO licence in the EU, the natural choice wasn't France...and it was pure fortune that I found a pilot job there, but I'll soon have a chance to make the right choice...
I have nothing more to say about the French authorities investigating @ EZY offices but they all are a bunch of muppets making a shame of themselves...
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Missing the point
Help me out here. Does French Labour law not require that the company contributes to a retirement scheme. Would this not benefit Easy Jet employees in the long run ?
Waiting in the dark.
FG
Waiting in the dark.
FG
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What irritates the h**l out of me is that the french attitude is to protect there own countrymen (and women of course) first. You only have to watch Paris ATC departures in action to realise that. If that means ignoring the EU then so be it. Can we really blame them for it?
Where as in the UK, obsessed with fairness as we generally are, we politely say; " come on in we'll give you a job " or " no, you were here first, off you go ".
Why not adopt the same attitude, " we'll give you a job only after no more uk national's have applied".
OK, so mabey I'm a bit of a Francophobe.!!
Where as in the UK, obsessed with fairness as we generally are, we politely say; " come on in we'll give you a job " or " no, you were here first, off you go ".
Why not adopt the same attitude, " we'll give you a job only after no more uk national's have applied".
OK, so mabey I'm a bit of a Francophobe.!!
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Gentlemen, there are NO such thing as a European LAW; The EU commission promulgates DIRECTIVES, a bit like ICAO does with RECOMMENDATIONS. EU countries implement those directives in their own laws.......or not!
All EU countries have kept their autonomy, unlike the CIS republics or the US of A States.
EZ will have one way to get out of the mess they put themselves in, and that is to find evidences that the French law is discriminating them in relation to French airlines. This might take.......your guess years, and in the mean time it will have to abide by the french Law, IF the french judge so decides, which is not yet certain he will.
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easyjet currently contibutes 7-9% of your salary (your choice) into the company pension scheme on your behalf.
I say there boy
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Thanks Clarence for a voice of reason.
In a nutshell, Regulations have direct effect in the EC Member states. Directives need enacting into national law to be effective. If a directive has not (yet) been enacted into local law then it still has effect against "emanations of the state" (which has a relatively wide definition in EC case law - see Foster v British Gas). The State could be liable if a person suffers loss due to directives not being enacted into national law.
In a nutshell, Regulations have direct effect in the EC Member states. Directives need enacting into national law to be effective. If a directive has not (yet) been enacted into local law then it still has effect against "emanations of the state" (which has a relatively wide definition in EC case law - see Foster v British Gas). The State could be liable if a person suffers loss due to directives not being enacted into national law.
Last edited by foghorn; 17th Dec 2006 at 11:49. Reason: poor grammar!
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The French are alway difficult; they have a chip on their shoulder. I think this is because or despite being cleverer than everyone else they have never attained their true position in the world. They see the EU as a means of correcting this as it enables them to inflict their wisdom on other countries (who should know better).
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It is a system where todays contribution is used to pay yesterdays pension.The system needs money NOW to pay the already retired guys. What will be left of the system when the EZY guys will retire, in 10-20 or 30 years from now, is a big question mark!
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What seems a bit surprising is that Easy has been operating out of Orly for years now. And all of a sudden, right when AF's transavia.com start operations, they get raided
... this shows again what kind of dictatorship is ruling french skies.
No wonder why there's only one french airline...yeah I know there's also those charters and the likes...look at the rest of europe! How come the first leisure destination in the world got only one sigle airline
? Not even an independent low cost or some alternative to the former national airline...
As long as the french goverment has interests in the airline, then yes Air France wil be the fat lady sitting on everyone else's head...
... this shows again what kind of dictatorship is ruling french skies. No wonder why there's only one french airline...yeah I know there's also those charters and the likes...look at the rest of europe! How come the first leisure destination in the world got only one sigle airline
? Not even an independent low cost or some alternative to the former national airline...As long as the french goverment has interests in the airline, then yes Air France wil be the fat lady sitting on everyone else's head...
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Let's say easyjet ends up having to transfer their ORY-based crew to French contracts. The one big difference would be that the staff and airline would then contribute to the Caisse de Retraite du Personnel Navigant (CRPN - Flight Crew [National] Pension Scheme) - which is now mainly used to fund the baby-boomer retirement bulge at AF. Since some ORY-based easyjet crew are not French, do you think they would get their contributions to the CRPN back when transfering to another EZ base? Somehow, methinks not. Highway robbery is the analogy that comes to my mind...
Cheers
Cheers
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What irritates the h**l out of me is that the french attitude is to protect there own countrymen (and women of course) first.
This not a rare occurence since the Pilot employment market in France is pretty much dead therefore it means that a lot of us have lived as expats for years now(no probs here by the way).
In this case, there is no protectionism here when it comes to the "own countrymen" you are referring to.
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Oh dear, such rightfull indignation. That will never happen in the Uk. There is no way the UK goverment will intervene to defend a UK company. Not even to get a corruption investigation that was getting a bit out of hand closed down. 
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I would like to politely suggest that most of you have got the wrong end of the stick on this. Even the French contributors seem to feel that the French government is behaving inappropriately. We also have the idea floating around that it is all about defending various companies. Has it crossed anybodies mind that it might be about protecting the pilots and taxpayers??
As more and more airlines establish bases in different countries, this opens up the way to "practices" which have been termed "social dumping" and creative "tax avoidance". The French action is designed to ensure that certain companies that, for example, arrange to pay either NO or very low rate of social insurance in country A cannot work in country B and use, for example, the free medical services in country B.
All that is happening is that the various little tricks which have grown over the past couple of years are being identified. Some countries, such as France, have worked out what is going on and are doing something about it. Others are getting ready to do something and some don't care.
If you think this is a theoretical exercise consider the pilot's family in Germany that found itself entrapped in a nightmare when it was discovered that they were using expensive, but free, high quality medical care on the basis of minimal social payments in Ireland. It turned out the German taxpayer is not much interested in subsidising such persons.
Whose "fault" was this? ... well the airline was not in the slightest interested (but it set the arrangement up). Nothing quite like large medical bills to concentrate the mind.
We still have a goodly number of pilots from, say, European country A, but working in European country B, and paying no (or virtually no) tax in any country. And why should the little "arrangement" between employer and employee be protected from intervention on the part of authorities in country B, on the basis of the convenient fact that their contract was issued in country A?
Let us wait and see what happens as a result of these visits before reaching a conclusion about what is going on. I think we can expect more of this kind of intervention. I, for one, applaud it.
(P.S. do you think the airlines that do this kind of thing - and I am not identifying any airline - are doing it for the sake of their pilots? If so - come into the real world!).
As more and more airlines establish bases in different countries, this opens up the way to "practices" which have been termed "social dumping" and creative "tax avoidance". The French action is designed to ensure that certain companies that, for example, arrange to pay either NO or very low rate of social insurance in country A cannot work in country B and use, for example, the free medical services in country B.
All that is happening is that the various little tricks which have grown over the past couple of years are being identified. Some countries, such as France, have worked out what is going on and are doing something about it. Others are getting ready to do something and some don't care.
If you think this is a theoretical exercise consider the pilot's family in Germany that found itself entrapped in a nightmare when it was discovered that they were using expensive, but free, high quality medical care on the basis of minimal social payments in Ireland. It turned out the German taxpayer is not much interested in subsidising such persons.
Whose "fault" was this? ... well the airline was not in the slightest interested (but it set the arrangement up). Nothing quite like large medical bills to concentrate the mind.
We still have a goodly number of pilots from, say, European country A, but working in European country B, and paying no (or virtually no) tax in any country. And why should the little "arrangement" between employer and employee be protected from intervention on the part of authorities in country B, on the basis of the convenient fact that their contract was issued in country A?
Let us wait and see what happens as a result of these visits before reaching a conclusion about what is going on. I think we can expect more of this kind of intervention. I, for one, applaud it.
(P.S. do you think the airlines that do this kind of thing - and I am not identifying any airline - are doing it for the sake of their pilots? If so - come into the real world!).
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Boy,
I'm sorry but you are wrong. The intervention from the french authorities has nothing to do with protecting the french social security from tax evasion. It has all to do with killing the competition to make room for the new Air France low cost subsidiary.
Also did you know that a certain AF subsidiary, Cityjet, also employs crew under foreign contracts, but strangely the french authorities don't seem to be interested to the point of raiding the AF offices in CDG.
The french contributors (myself included) know all too well how things work in France, I think you should take their view a bit more seriously. One thing is for sure : the french authorities have been trying for a while to get rid of eJ, and what we have just seen is merely the escalation of the effort they are putting into it.
I'm sorry but you are wrong. The intervention from the french authorities has nothing to do with protecting the french social security from tax evasion. It has all to do with killing the competition to make room for the new Air France low cost subsidiary.
Also did you know that a certain AF subsidiary, Cityjet, also employs crew under foreign contracts, but strangely the french authorities don't seem to be interested to the point of raiding the AF offices in CDG.
The french contributors (myself included) know all too well how things work in France, I think you should take their view a bit more seriously. One thing is for sure : the french authorities have been trying for a while to get rid of eJ, and what we have just seen is merely the escalation of the effort they are putting into it.