Server fired from B.C. restaurant says he wasn’t rude and disrespectful, he’s just French

A French man living in B.C. says he was fired from his restaurant job after his employer told him he was rude and disrespectful.

But he says that’s not true, arguing he was not abusive, he’s just French.

Guillaume Rey is now taking his fight to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.

The restaurant, Milestones, did acknowledge Rey was good at his job and was nice to customers.

But it said he was not so nice when it came to his coworkers.

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In the document it states on a number of occasions, the restaurant’s management talked to Rey about his behaviour toward his co‐workers. Rey alleges that, “on more than one occasion”, his general manager and another manager had casually commented to him that “it might be because of my culture that other staff members think I am being aggressive.”

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Rey denies that he was aggressive or had engaged in any inappropriate behaviour. He claims he did not have a chance to explain his version of events.

Rey was terminated after an interaction with another server but says he is misunderstood. Milestones says Rey violated the Code of Conduct he signed when he was hired.

“He was saying, ‘I’m French and this is how I speak and you just didn’t understand that I wasn’t being aggressive, I wasn’t yelling, that’s just how French people speak,'” employment lawyer Dave Turner told Global National.

The complaint will now proceed to a hearing.