Sophie X, an engineer in the public sector, understands perfectly well that an organization like RATP fights against fraud, which, every year, causes it to lose some 170 million euros in revenue, equivalent to the price of twenty metro trains. But she does not admit that controllers sanction an involuntary offense. Justice has just proved him right.
On July 9, 2021, this five-year-old from Bordeaux is passing through Paris, to go to Saône-et-Loire. Arriving in Montparnasse, she takes a bus (the 91) that leads to the Gare de Lyon. This one, double, with bellows, is crowded; loaded with two suitcases, she only manages to get into it through a middle door. She composes a cardboard ticket, bought during a previous stay in the capital. But this one is not validated, because, obviously, demagnetized. “I wanted to go to the driver, to report it to him, but the passengers standing in the corridor prevented me from moving forward,” she says.
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Halfway through, a team of three controllers gives him a ticket, despite his explanations, and the support of other travelers. “Do they get bonuses? Ms. X wonders, furious that they “didn’t even want to check the status of the other tickets” in her notebook. Yes, the RATP answers to the World: these teams benefit from a “collective bonus”, when their verbalizations correspond to the objectives set by Ile-de-France Mobilités, the organizing authority for public transport in Ile-de-France. But this premium “amounts to a few tens of euros” only every month.
“Refusal to comply”
The controllers advise Ms. X to pay her “lump sum compensation” immediately, otherwise it will be increased by “application fees”, which the RATP sets at the maximum allowed by a decree of May 3, 2016, i.e. 50 euros, in order to deter deferred payments. She has indeed found that half of the addresses left by those who do not pay on the spot are false.
The law of March 22, 2016 called “Savary” provided for a system for verifying the identities that are given, thanks to the creation of an exchange platform between transport operators and social benefit organizations, but this has not yet seen the light of day.
As Mrs. X objects, the officers ask her address and identity, to send her their report (PV) of offense. She refuses to answer. They call a judicial police officer, who sends a policeman to check his identity. Which earns him an additional fine, for “refusal to comply”, and new application fees.
Mrs. X disputes the PV, within the legal period of three months. But, without respecting this one, the RATP transmitted them to the Bordeaux police court, which instructed the Public Treasury to recover them, with a new mark-up. Total: 444 euros, which Mrs. X pays, before protesting to the Public Prosecutor of her city.
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Why did it “work hard” to verbalize a traveler whose ticket has demagnetized, when the RATP itself indicates that, every year, “five million cardboard tickets are demagnetized”, and that it has, for this reason in particular, announced their disappearance, on August 30, 2021? The prosecutor cancels the prosecution against him. And, on March 1st, Sophie X receives a check for 444 euros from the Public Treasury.
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