Support for Paris bus driver who helped disabled user
A Parisian bus driver, who took the unusual decision to ask all of his passengers to leave the bus to allow a wheelchair user to get on, has said he did it because “no one was moving”.
The wheelchair user - François Le Berre, who has multiple sclerosis - wrote on Twitter that he was waiting to get on the bus in the capital’s 17th arrondissement, but none of the existing passengers were moving to allow him to do so.
Buses in the capital usually only have one or two places where a wheelchair can go, and other passengers should give priority to them by moving out of the way and allowing a user to get on.
A tweet describing the incident from an account named “Accessible Pour Tous” - a disabled support network - has since been Liked over 9,000 times, retweeted over 3,000 times, and has received almost 4,000 comments - most of which are supportive and congratulating the driver.
According to Mr Berre, the driver than said: “Terminus! Everyone off!”, and made all the passengers descend. He then came to him and said: “You can get on first, and the others can wait for the next one.”
Mr Berre said: "No-one wanted to move despite the access ramp. When he saw that, the RATP driver quickly intervened. He got up and said, 'everyone off'. Everyone did it, but some people did grumble a bit."
The driver then said: “Everyone might need a wheelchair one day.”
