The airline Air France was found guilty of sex discrimination in Norway after asking a passenger to change seats so as not to be seated next to unaccompanied minors. The risk of sexual assault was raised and the request would not have been made if the passenger had been a female passenger.
Dominique Sellier contacted the Diskimineringsnemnda, the Norwegian Anti-Discrimination Commission. The crew of an Oslo-Paris flight on October 27, 2022 asked him, before takeoff, to exchange seats with a passenger on the grounds that he could not be seated next to two children traveling alone.
During the examination of the case, the lawyer for the French company justified this change of seats by the internal regulations of the carrier and argued that men represented 97.93% of the perpetrators of the suspected sexual crimes and offenses.
“It was not a very pleasant situation,” Mr. Sellier told AFP on Tuesday. “The passengers around were looking at me, because they were waiting for the seat change to be made so that we could take off.”
“There may be some projection, but I interpreted some of the looks as saying ‘this guy is not in focus,’” he explained.
According to the decision of the Anti-Discrimination Commission, of which AFP obtained a copy, Air France’s internal regulations stipulate that in the event of a full flight, it is “preferably” a woman who is seated alongside unaccompanied minors. .
Asked by AFP, Air France, through its lawyer, did not wish to comment at this stage.
According to the hearing report, the company attempted to question the jurisdiction of the Norwegian body in this case, arguing that the episode had occurred on board a plane which was not registered in Norway.
In the alternative, she also affirmed that this was a difference in legal treatment, justified by the need to ensure the safety of unaccompanied minors against the risk of “trafficking and other forms of violence and aggression”.
“How can we accept this type of suspicion because we belong to the masculine gender? It’s an essentialization of men which seems to me to go a little too far,” reacts Dominique Sellier.
Although he won his case before the Diskrimineringsnemnda made up of three lawyers, the complainant says he received neither compensation nor an apology.
During the flight, “I just had a glass of champagne in a paper cup,” he said.
