France’s foreign minister has called the CEO of Spanish airline Vueling to demand an “explanation” after around 50 French teenagers, all Jewish, were removed from a flight this week, Paris said on Saturday, July 26. During an incident on Wednesday, the Spanish airline said it had asked the adolescents to leave the plane in the Spanish city of Valencia due to their “disruptive behavior.”
But parents condemned what some described as an “antisemitic act” and alleged that the teenagers were forced off the plane after one of them had sung a song in Hebrew. On Friday, Vueling maintained that its decision was made “solely for safety reasons” because the teens were tampering with life jackets, oxygen masks and oxygen cylinders.
France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot called Vueling CEO Carolina Martinoli the same day “to express his deep concern about the removal of a group of young French Jews from one of the company’s planes,” the Foreign Ministry said. “An explanation has been requested, in particular to determine whether these French nationals had been subjected to discrimination on the grounds of their religion.”
The ministry added that “the same request was made to the Spanish ambassador to France (…) Ms Carolina Martinoli assured him that a thorough internal investigation was underway and that the findings would be shared with the French and Spanish authorities.”
The Club Kineret association, which organized the summer camp, announced on Thursday to Agence France-Presse (AFP) its intention to file a complaint against the carrier “for physical and psychological violence and discrimination on the basis of religion,” through its lawyer, Julie Jacob. She cited “aggravating circumstances,” as some of the children were “under 15 years of age.”
