A French court on Monday, July 21 sentenced an employer and two others to jail over human trafficking in the champagne industry, exploiting seasonal workers and housing them in appalling conditions during the 2023 harvest. The decision comes as the Champagne wine-making region is under scrutiny, with another enquiry into the employment of Ukrainian harvesters during the same 2023 harvest, which was marked by exceptional heat and the death of four grape pickers.
The lawyer for the victims – 50 mostly undocumented migrant harvesters from Mali, Mauritania, Ivory Coast and Senegal – welcomed what he called a "historic" decision. The court sentenced the director of a vine-growing servicing company called Anavim, a Kyrgyz woman in her 40s, to two years behind bars, as well as another two suspended. She had denied she was responsible for the housing conditions, and had blamed the two other defendants suspected of recruiting the harvesters.
The court sentenced the two other people, both men in their 30s, to one year behind bars, as well as two and one suspended. All three were found guilty of human trafficking – defined under French law as "recruiting, transporting, transferring, housing or receiving a person to exploit them," by means of coerced employment, abusing a position of authority, abusing a vulnerable situation or in exchange of payment or benefits.
The court in the town of Chalons-en-Champagne dissolved the servicing company and ordered a wine-making cooperative it worked with to pay a €75,000 fine. It ordered the three found guilty to pay €4,000 each to each victim.
Attorney Maxime Cessieux, who represented the victims, said the ruling was "exemplary." This year's grape harvest "will be closely scrutinized and no one will be able to say 'I didn't know, I didn't understand, I didn't know who these people in my vineyards were,'" he said.
Every year, around 120,000 seasonal workers are recruited to handpick the grapes grown across 34,000 hectares in the Champagne region to make the iconic bubbly. In 2023, four grape harvesters died, possibly the result of sunstroke after working in scorching heat.