Part 3: France,

It seems that this is becoming a trend for me to post little newsbits from around the world and ridicule them. I’m sure I could find similar things in parts of the US, but since I’m already here they wouldn’t really match with the theme.

This isn’t really a law in France, but it is something that seems to have taken place there. It seems that corporations there are allowed to sue you for not using their service.

One article about it. Instead of riding the bus and taking the bus line’s inferior service, a group of people got sick of it and decided to carpool to work instead. The bus line now says that this group of 10 people is costing them 2 million euros per year. Man, that’s some expensive bus fares.

If there’s any sanity left in the country, they’ll throw this out. Too bad we won’t know for at least 6 months. Can you imagine if there was a bus system in your town that always ran late, had rude drivers, and didn’t allow you any sort of freedoms while you were riding… that could sue you if you rode a bicycle instead? Tie you up in court for months, wasting your money for that amount of time on something so utterly foolish?

Edit 1: It appears the company is getting its comeuppance from this though. They’re now in bankruptcy court which appears to be the reason the suit has been delayed so long. It appears that by doing the original lawsuit they managed to shoot themselves soundly in the foot causing the publicity that was their demise. It seems that their inferior service was disliked by more than just the 10 women they originally sued. Too bad this probably won’t be publicized much because it would serve as a good cautionary tale to companies that want to use government protection rather than good quality service at reasonable prices to keep afloat.

I definitely wouldn’t want to move to France…