Chief of the Champagne industry, another 2 prison for human trafficking, allegedly treating workers in France

A French court imprisoned three people on Monday for trafficking in people in the Champagne industry, exploiting seasonal workers and housed them in terrible conditions.

The Champagne region is under difficult scrutiny, with another investigation investigating the use of Ukrainian workers during the same 2023 harvest, which was marked by exceptional heat and the death of four grape containers.

A lawyer of the victims, more than 50 migrant workers mostly undocumented from Mali, Mauritania, Ivory and Senegal coast, said the court had made a “historical” decision.

The victims, who said they had been treated “as slaves”, also praised the ruling.

“People were working in really bad conditions, and this decision is fair,” said Amadou Diallo, a 39 -year -old player from Senegal.

The workers, all undocumented migrants, were found during the harvest of September 2023 who lives in narrow and anti-hygienic conditions in a building in Nesle-Le-Rpons in the heart of Champagne Country, BBC reported.

The Court sentenced the director of a service company called Anavim, a Kyry -woman woman of about 40 years, two years after bars, and another two years suspended.

She had denied being responsible for housing conditions, and blamed the other two defendants suspected of recruiting the harvesters.

The Court sentenced the other two, both 30 -year -old men, one year in jail, along with the suspended terms. One is a man from Georgia’s country and the other is a Frenchman, the BBC reported.

The three were declared guilty of trafficking of persons, defined by French law as “recruitment, transport, transfer, housing or receiving a person to exploit them”, by means of coerced employment, abusing a position of authority, abusing a vulnerable situation or change of payment or benefits.

Some workers were recruited through a WhatsApp group message for the Soninke ethnic community of Western Africa that lives in Paris, which promised “well -paid work” in the Champagne region, BBC reported.

The director of Anavim was also convicted of crimes, including the concealment of the employment of workers.

The Chaloons-En-Bampagne court dissolved the service company and ordered a wine manufacturing cooperative with which it worked to pay a fine of $ 87,000.

The court ordered that the three guilty paid 4,000 euros each to each victim.

A lawyer from Anavim’s director described the “unfair” ruling and said there would be an appeal.

“My client is the guilty ideal for an industry that has long turned a blind eye to its own practices,” said Bruno Questel.

“Without food, without water, with nothing”

Maxime Cessieux, a lawyer of the victims, said that the 2025 harvest “will be examined closely and nobody can say ‘I did not know, I did not understand, I did not know who these people were in my vineyards'”.

In September 2023, the labor inspection found that the accommodation provided by Anavim for grape collectors southwest Reims “seriously undermined” health, health and dignity.

The accommodation was subsequently closed by the Prefecture, which had indicated the improvised bedding and “the terrible state of the bathrooms, bathrooms and communal areas.”

Camara Sikou, one of the victims, told the Court that the workers had been treated “as slaves.”

“They put us in an abandoned building, without food, without water, with nothing,” added Modibo Sidibe, who said the workers were in the fields of 5 am to 6 pm

“I never thought that the people who made champagne would put us in a place that even the animals would not accept,” said Kanouitié Djakariau, 44, to the newspaper La Croix, according to the BBC.

The Champagne Committee, which represents the viticultors and champagne houses, was a plaintiff in the trial.

“You do not play with the health and safety of seasonal workers. We are not playing with the image of our denomination,” said the commercial association.

The CGT Champagne union said the punishment was not enough.

“What we are asking for is the degradation of the harvest” in the areas where crimes were committed, so it could no longer be used to produce champagne, said José Blanco, general secretary of CGT.

Every year, around 120,000 seasonal workers are recruited to choose the grapes cultivated in 84,000 acres in the Champagne region.

In 2023, four harvesters died, possibly the result of the insolation after working in abrasor heat.

A service provider and its manager will go to trial in November on suspicion of having housed 40 Ukrainians in unlike conditions.

• France
• Trafficking in people