In Gironde, a new trial of a case of human trafficking in the wine industry, at the Libourne court.
The two main defendants, a couple of French employers aged 54 and 42at the head of a company providing viticultural work acting as an intermediary between seasonal workers and châteaux, are being prosecuted in particular for “trafficking” and “submission to unworthy working conditions”.
Their recruiter, a 46-year-old Moroccan, appears solely for “trafficking”.
Money paid to come to work
The victims, men and a woman recruited in Morocco, had paid to defendants between 8,000 and 10,000 euros to come and work in the vineyard between January 2021 and January 2024.
In exchange, these immigrant workers, aged between twenty and forty, were promised a four-month work contract paid at the minimum wage, accommodation and a residence permit.
According to investigators, these promises were never really honored: contracts were not handed out, working weeks went up to 62 hours without financial compensation, and regular residence permits were never provided.
Housing in unworthy conditions
The victims were also housed in “conditions contrary to human dignity”according to the Labor Inspectorate. They sometimes crammed together 12 people at the same time, with no mattresses available for everyone, in two small apartments in the center of Libourne.
Cases of exploitation of immigrant wine workers, with mechanisms similar to those of migrant smuggling networks, have recently multiplied in the Bordeaux vineyards, with the Libourne public prosecutor's office in particular making it “one of its priorities”.
Several people have been sentenced to prison in his jurisdiction or that of the Bordeaux public prosecutor's office in similar cases of human trafficking targeting immigrant workers, particularly Romanians and Moroccans.
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