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The French public prosecutor's office has opened two investigations into human trafficking in the Champagne region. During a routine check in the village of Nesle-le-Repons in the Marne Valley, the police and anti-trafficking investigators found 52 undocumented seasonal workers housed in "abominable" conditions. The workers were "hungry and exhausted".
Officials discovered "makeshift shelters, dilapidated buildings, unhygienic conditions, lack of cleaning and disinfection, a disgusting state of the toilets, sanitary facilities and common areas, and the accumulation of faeces in the sanitary facilities", according to a report by the competent prefecture.
The workers from Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Guinea and Gambia told reporters that they had been recruited in Paris to harvest grapes in Champagne for 80 euros a day. However, their wages were not paid, they were only given a sack of rice and a few grapes as food. In the meantime, the Salvation Army has accommodated them in hotels in Châlons-en-Champagne and Reims.
The incident is not the only one in Champagne: already at the beginning of September, French authorities discovered 18 Bulgarian grape pickers housed in potentially dangerous conditions in Cuis, near Epernay. In another recent case, around 150 Ukrainian grape pickers were found in a condemned building in unhygienic conditions in Mourmelon-le-Petit in the Marne Valley. The authorities ordered the closure of the building and issued a warning to the owner.
Céline Fassey, deputy public prosecutor of Châlons-en-Champagne, told the AFP news agency that "several companies" were being targeted. However, she did not say which champagne houses the harvesters had worked for.
(uka / Sources: Decanter, AFP, regional media)