2023-08-25 15:49:00
It must have been a stay like thousands of young people experience every summer. The “la clef” youth center in Etterbeek left on July 10, in the evening, for the Bordeaux region with four leaders and 12 young people aged 11 to 15. Who says youth center often says economic choices but also respect for the environment, and here is the fine team ready to reach the south of France by coach, via the Flixbus company, with a stopover in Paris, around midnight. And it would be wrong to write that this is where the adventure turns into a nightmare, since the team will not have slept a wink all night.
“We get on our connection at Paris-Bercy station, says Magali, coordinator of the Maison des Jeunes and facilitator during the trip. It is more or less half past midnight, but after a few meters, we quickly realize that the bus has a mechanical problem and that it will be impossible to reach Bordeaux. We don’t even get out of the station, the drivers force us to get out of the bus, and tell us that Flixbus will contact us.”
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Two hours pass, and the group waits, sitting in the tunnel of the station which does not enjoy the best reputation in the city of light, far from it. It is almost three o’clock when the transport company contacts the unfortunate travellers: “Flixbus offers us either to find another company, or a second class train, or to reimburse us for a hotel room up to 80 euros per person” . In the middle of the night, and especially in the middle of July, no hotel knows how to accommodate the group who wait until 5:30 a.m. to get to Montparnasse station and try to jump on a train: in vain… There are a week of delays .
A plan B at 4400 euros
The day is already well up in Paris. And at breakfast time, the team hasn’t slept a wink and is exhausted. “We are starting to look for a private bus”, because to wait for another Flixbus, we had to wait 23 hours, or 24 hours waiting. At 10 a.m., a transport company takes the young people to the village in the south, which is waiting for them. Price of the operation: 4,400 euros. “The Maison des Jeunes is not making any profit on this trip, which means that here we will be in deficit.” A deficit that Flixbus does not intend to cover despite the technical breakdown suffered by its bus, and the fact that no proposed solution is seriously possible for young people in Brussels.
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The transport company agrees, of course, to reimburse the bus journey that it did not cover, but stops there under the guise that an alternative solution – and not offered – has been chosen. The position does not please the municipality of Etterbeek, on which the youth center depends, and the mayor – who has youth for competence – Vincent De Wolf (MR) says he is ready to go further. As proof: the Etterbeek college has appointed a lawyer who will send a letter of formal notice to Flixbus. “These facts are intolerable and scandalous, asserts the mayor, who speaks of an obvious contractual violation.” In view of the night spent in the “appalling conditions” that we know and the loss of a day of travel, adequate damages will be requested, otherwise “we will go to trial”, promises the liberal.
Contacted many times, the transport company did not respond to our requests.
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