Oh dear just when you think you have a smooth operator you find that he has been
a bad boy.
Operating at Marsaille Mr O Leary is required to pay his tax here in France.
It has been reported that he pays it in Dublin.
Everyone has to obey the rules.
There is always something like that in the background...politics.
Michael O'Leary does not need me to defend him, but in the interests of accuracy, I set out herewith a quote from the Guardian: "O'Leary, who saved 30% on high French social charges by using Irish contracts, said he was abiding by European law because his workers were mobile and worked on "Irish registered aircraft defined as Irish territory.
French courts ruled against Ryanair, saying that employees of foreign airlines living in France come under French social security and tax law.
"Sadly, the loss of four aircraft, 200 jobs and 13 routes at Marseille is a high price necessary to demonstrate these are mobile Irish workers," O'Leary said, before axing over half of his Marseille routes and taking the case to the European court of human rights."
For me the key statement here is: "Jean-Claude Gaudin, Marseille's mayor and a key figure in Nicolas Sarkozy's ruling rightwing party in the south, wrote to the president urging him to drop the state action and scrap a decree that foreign airline workers in France should pay French tax. He said the decree, aimed at protecting Air France from competition, was obsolete. Gaudin said unions were totally irresponsible."