French prosecutors on Thursday, June 19, requested two years behind bars for an employer in the champagne sector accused of human trafficking, exploiting seasonal workers and housing them in appalling conditions during the 2023 grape harvest. More than 50 mostly undocumented migrant harvesters lived in accommodation that harmed their "security, health and dignity", according to the prosecution. "We cannot accept any champagne bottle concealing unregulated subcontracting and blatant mistreatment," the prosecutor said.
The director, a Kyrgyz woman in her forties, has also been accused of concealed labor, submitting vulnerable or dependent persons to undignified housing conditions and employing foreign nationals without authorization. Communicating with the help of a translator, the main defendant denied she was responsible for the housing conditions and blamed two co-defendants suspected of recruiting the harvesters hailing from Mali, Mauritania, Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal. The prosecutor requested a three-year sentence for those two men, including at least one year without parole.
Both Anavim, which provided the housing to the 57 seasonal workers, and a wine cooperative that traded with the company were also tried as responsible parties in court. The prosecutor requested that Anavim be dissolved and the cooperative fined €200,000 euros. The court is to issue a verdict on July 21.
Camara Sikou, one of the laborers, said in court that the workers had been treated "like slaves." Another worker, Modibo Sidibe, told Agence France-Presse: "They put us in an abandoned building with no food, no water, nothing. And then they took us to harvest the grapes from 5 am to 6 pm."
Prosecutors said investigators inspected living conditions of the harvesters in September 2023, after a neighbor alerted French police. The accommodation, a warehouse and a house under construction in the village of Nesle-le-Repons, contained "worn and dirty sanitation facilities," bedding strewn on the floor and an outdoor kitchen and living areas unprotected from the weather. The accommodation also failed to respect electrical "security measures," the prosecutor said.
Following the inspection, regional authorities ordered the closure of the accommodation, citing "unsanitary" and "undignified" living conditions. According to a report conducted by the labour inspectorate, the accommodation was in a state of "dilapidation" and the toilets and shared living spaces were "disgusting" due to lack of cleaning.
Every year, around 120,000 seasonal laborers are brought to the Champagne region to handpick grapes grown across 34,000 hectares and used to make its iconic bubbly. The famed winemaking region's reputation took a hit in 2023 when four grape harvesters died, possibly the result of sunstroke after working in scorching heat.