The Toulouse Court of Appeal on Thursday sentenced the SNCF to pay 5,000 euros in damages to a wheelchair student who was attacking him for "discrimination" for lack of adaptation of the trains to the disabled.
The toilets and the bar-car inaccessible to armchairs
Judged "responsible, during the execution of the contract of carriage, an injury to the dignity" of the plaintiff - dismissed in the first instance - the SNCF will also pay him 2,000 euros for legal costs. On the other hand, the court dismissed the 27-year-old man's request to rule that SNCF "failed to comply with its legal obligations regarding the accessibility of its transport equipment to people with disabilities".
With the "Little Syndrome" (degeneration of neurons), Kévin Fermine, an associative activist regularly taking the train to travel to Paris, had argued that he could not go to the toilets and the wagon-bar during his trips. "Every time I take the train, I wonder if I'm going to have to pee on it as it has already happened," he had in particular testified at the microphone of Europe 1.
"A symbolic victory"
"I am satisfied because the justice recognized that it was not possible in 2019 to make people travel under these conditions," he reacted for AFP. "It's a symbolic victory, a step forward, that can inspire other people with disabilities to claim their rights," he added. His defense put forward "the contractual aspect" of the obligations of the SNCF, "even though the law leaves deadlines" for compliance, said his lawyer, Pascal Nakache.
This decision "implies that the SNCF will have to do much faster" to comply and "opens the way for other procedures" from people with disabilities, he said. The defense of the SNCF had reminded during the hearing that the law extended until 2024 the accessibility of rail transport, thus allowing the company to a gradual compliance. It had also objected that the purpose of the contract of carriage "is to ensure the safety and the safe transport of users and does not imply to ensure the transport of users in so-called 'normal' conditions, namely by permitting in particular, access to the toilets ".