Sophie X, an engineer in the public sector, understands perfectly that an organization like the RATP fights against fraud, which, each year, causes it to lose some 170 million euros in revenue, i.e. the equivalent of the price of twenty Metro. But it does not allow controllers to sanction an involuntary violation. Justice has just given him reason.
On July 9, 2021, this fifty-year-old from Bordeaux is passing through Paris, to go to Saône-et-Loire. Arriving in Montparnasse, she takes a bus (the 91) which leads to the Gare de Lyon. This one, double, bellows, is crowded; loaded with two suitcases, she only manages to get in through a door in the middle. She stamps a cardboard ticket, bought during a previous stay in the capital. But this one is not validated, because, obviously, demagnetized. “I wanted to go see the driver, to let him know, but the passengers standing in the corridor were preventing me from moving forward,” she says.
Halfway through, a team of three controllers gives him a ticket, despite his explanations and the support of other travelers. “Do they get bonuses? », M wondersme X, furious that they didn’t “didn’t even want to check the status of others tickets » from his notebook. Yes, answer the Monde the RATP: these teams benefit from « prime collective », 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 bounty “represents a few tens of euros” only every month.
“Refusal to comply”
The controllers advise Mme X to immediately pay his “lump sum indemnity”, failing which it will be increased by “application fees”, which the RATP sets at the maximum authorized by a decree of May 3, 2016, i.e. 50 euros, in order to dissuade deferred payments. She has indeed found that half of the addresses left by those who do not pay immediately are false.
The law of March 22, 2016 known as “Savary” provided for a system of verification of the identities which are given, thanks to the creation of a platform for exchange between transport operators and social service organizations, but this this has not yet appeared.
Like Mme X opposes it, the agents ask him for his address and identity, to send him their report (PV) of the offence. She refuses to answer. They call a judicial police officer, who sends a policeman to identify him. This earned him an additional fine, for “refusal to comply”, and new administrative costs.
Mme X disputes the minutes, within the legal period of three months. But, without respecting this, the RATP transmitted them to the Bordeaux police court, which instructed the Public Treasury to recover them, with a new increase. Total: 444 euros, including Mme X acquits, before protesting to the public prosecutor of his city.
Why did you “relentlessly” verbalize a traveler whose ticket became demagnetized, when the RATP itself indicates that, each year, ” five million cardboard tickets are degaussed “, and that she, for this reason in particular, announced their disappearance, on August 30, 2021? The prosecutor cancels the charges against him. And, the 1is March, Sophie X receives a check for 444 euros from the Treasury.