A-Infos (en) France, Lamouette Enragee: Sleeping in a car to repair fiber optics: how far will contempt go? (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

This contribution was suggested to us by a reader, and we have agreed to 
publish it. His testimony sheds light on an often-overlooked reality: 
the one endured by subcontracted workers subjected to the most degraded 
and precarious living and working conditions. If you, too, would like to 
share your experience, please do not hesitate to contact us. ---- On a 
rain-swept street in Bomarsund, three technicians are working hard to 
restore a fiber optic cabinet for the Bouygues Telecom group, which had 
been vandalized and then set on fire a few days earlier. Three workers, 
employed by the company, sheltering as best they can under a makeshift 
tent so that Bouygues users can connect to the internet. Their day? From 
7:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Their night? In a black C4 Picasso, parked a 
stone's throw from the "construction site." This is the reality. And 
behind this reality lies an unbearable truth: these men are not Bouygues 
employees, but subcontractors, foreigners, invisible. They don't wear 
the company's logo, but they are the ones who bear the burden. No hotel 
rooms, no hot meals, no decent conditions, and not even toilets. Only 
fatigue, cold, and silence.
Because therein lies the heart of the problem: a cascade of 
subcontracting. This isn't Bouygues's first scandal: from the 
Flamanville EPR construction site (2008-2012), where the company was 
convicted of undeclared work (2017), to fiber optic connections managed 
by precarious subcontractors, the mechanics are always the same. While 
large corporations, publicly responsible for illegal and immoral 
practices, secure all the profits, they still delegate the most 
difficult tasks to a chain of intermediaries so long that it erases all 
responsibility. At each level, a little more pressure, a little fewer 
rights. And at the end of the chain: men reduced to sleeping in a car 
after twelve hours of labor.
Is this the France of progress? Is this digital modernity, treating 
humans like interchangeable parts, subject to forced labor at will, 
parked in a car at night so that the internet can function? We are told 
repeatedly that the economy needs flexibility, that outsourcing is a 
necessity. But when flexibility becomes exploitation, when outsourcing 
resembles modern slavery, then these are no longer arguments, they are 
pretexts.
Let's make no mistake: if these workers are invisible, it is because it 
suits the large corporations. They profit from their sweat, but don't 
take responsibility. Bouygues collects, the subcontractors execute and 
pay the price. That's the chain.
It's time to break this silence. It's time to say that sleeping in a car 
after 12 hours of labor is not normal, that working in a thunderstorm 
without decent protection is unacceptable. Whether they are 
subcontracted or not, every company must respect human dignity. As for 
the government, it's time it truly took hold of this issue. Dignity, at 
work as elsewhere, is not negotiable; it is imposed. It must demand that 
companies respect all their workers, even subcontracted ones. We must 
protect these people who, in the shadows, ensure the continuity of our 
digital lives. Because even if they operate in the shadows, they are not 
shadows. And yet, everything is done to keep them hidden. So let's face 
them. Let's speak their names, tell their stories, and reject this 
contempt. Because there is no fiber, no technology, no modernity worth 
the sacrifice of human dignity.

Boulogne-sur-Mer, August 28 and 29, 2025.

https://lamouetteenragee.noblogs.org/post/2025/09/23/dormir-dans-une-voiture-pour-reparer-la-fibre-jusquou-ira-le-mepris/
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