STRASBOURG, France – Two Jewish restaurant owners in eastern France have filed a racism complaint against Deliveroo after at least one of its couriers refused to deliver their meals, police and judicial sources said today.
Prosecutors in the eastern city of Strasbourg confirmed that "an investigation is underway to identify the suspects" after the restaurant owners filed complaints last Thursday, according to a police source.
Their lawyer, Raphael Nisand, said that “the owners recount basically the same scenario: they prepare an order and the courier asks, ‘What kind of food is this?’ The owner says it’s Israeli food.”
“Then the courier says, ‘Oh no, I don’t deliver to Jews’ and cancels the delivery,” Nisand said.
He added that yesterday he also filed complaints against the couriers as well as Deliveroo on behalf of the Israelite Consistory of the Bas-Rhin department.
“The Bas-Rhin Israelite Consistory considers it unacceptable that deliverers working for Deliveroo openly practice anti-Semitic discrimination,” its president Maurice Dahan said in a statement.
Contacted by AFP, Deliveroo said it had reached out to the two restaurant owners.
“We are taking this incident very seriously and immediately opened an internal inquiry,” the Britain-based firm said in a statement, adding that if the allegations are confirmed, any couriers involved would be fired. – AFP, January 11, 2021
