PARIS – A summer camp counselor has claimed that Spanish police used excessive force on her during the removal of a group of French Jewish teenagers from a flight heading to Paris from Spain, according to statements by French government ministers on Wednesday.
Ministers Aurore Bergé and Benjamin Haddad met the counselor on Tuesday, following French authorities’ notification to the CEO of Vueling, a Spanish budget airline, and the Spanish ambassador to France last week. They sought to determine if the teenagers faced religious discrimination.
A total of 44 young people and eight French adults were removed from flight V8166 from Valencia to Paris on July 23, a move justified by Spanish police and the airline as due to disruptive behavior.
However, the ministers relayed that the counselor, wishing to remain unnamed and described as “shocked,” refuted this account. She alleged that the crew was unfriendly from the beginning, noting that a child had briefly sung but stopped when asked. She insisted there was no behavior justifying the group’s removal or the heavy-handed response from the Civil Guard.
“No behavior justified their ejection or the excessive use of force by the Civil Guard on the young woman, who has been informed of a 15-day total incapacity to work,” stated the ministers. Her account was reportedly supported by other passengers.
The Club Kineret group, which managed the summer camp, did not immediately respond to The Associated Press’s requests for personal accounts from those expelled from the flight.
A Vueling spokesperson said the passengers were removed after the minors repeatedly tampered with the plane’s emergency equipment and interrupted the crew’s safety demonstration. A Civil Guard spokesperson said the plane captain ordered the group’s removal at Valencia’s Manises Airport after they repeatedly ignored crew instructions.
Bergé and Haddad also lashed out at a statement from the Spanish Minister of Transport “equating French children of Jewish faith with Israeli citizens, as if that somehow justified the treatment they received.” Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente has deleted a tweet from July 26 in which he called the minors “Israeli brats.”
“At a time when antisemitic acts have been on the rise across Europe since the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, in Israel, the ministers call on Vueling and the Spanish authorities to fully investigate and clarify the events,” Bergé and Haddad said. “We will never accept the normalization of antisemitism. We will always stand with our fellow citizens who suffer from antisemitic hatred, and we will never compromise.”
Vueling has denied that the incident was related to the passengers’ religion.
Some Israeli news outlets reported that the students were Jewish and that their removal was religiously motivated, a claim that was repeated by an Israeli minister online. The Civil Guard spokesperson said the agents involved were not aware of the group’s religious affiliation.
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