A-Infos (en) France, OCL CA #358 - First-instance trial in a case of modern slavery in Champagne (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

On September 9, 2023, in the Mourmelon-le-Petit industrial zone, nearly 
160 Ukrainian grape harvesters were evicted by the gendarmerie, in 
strict compliance with the prefectural order declaring the building 
where they were housed unsanitary and dangerous.
---- Among these seasonal workers were men, women, and also some 
teenagers who had come with their parents to work during the grape 
harvest. "The seasonal workers indicated they wanted to return to 
Ukraine afterward," the Marne prefecture services stated at the time. 
All were subsequently rehoused by their employer, some in the Marne 
department, others in the Aisne department. The owner of the unsanitary 
building had been formally notified by the prefecture, which ordered him 
to "make it inaccessible to any intrusion or illegal occupation."

Several offenses
On November 26, 2025, the employer of these hundred or so workers from 
across Europe appeared before the Châlons criminal court. The business 
owner from Épernay is being prosecuted for several offenses: subjecting 
several dependent individuals to undignified living conditions, 
undeclared work involving several people, fraud, employing a foreign 
national without a work permit, issuing an inaccurate certificate, and 
using a falsified certificate. The prevention period runs from September 
1st to September 12th, 2023.
Unlike the hearing on June 19th, 2025, the first criminal case in the 
"harvest of shame" of summer 2023, for which some fifty victims were 
identified, the civil parties' benches were empty on November 26th, 
2025, in the Châlons courtroom. The Ukrainian workers who came to 
Champagne to cut grapes for eight hours a day in the Marne vineyards 
have long since left.

However, before returning in mid-September 2023 to their war-torn 
country or to neighboring Poland, where some have found refuge, they 
filed a complaint against their employer, a wine service provider in 
Épernay.

All testified to the appalling conditions in which they were herded for 
several days in the Mourmelon-le-Petit industrial zone: without drinking 
water or ventilation in a dwelling riddled with mold and leaks, lacking 
proper electrical wiring and a connection to the sewer system, and 
infested with insects and rodents.

All this for a pittance of a wage, calculated by the agricultural social 
security fund (MSA) at 18 cents per kilo of harvested grapes. "These are 
people who have been kept in a state of absolute financial insecurity 
and exploited because they are simply trying to survive," denounced the 
lawyer for one of the plaintiffs.

Former Partner at the Heart of the Hearing
In the dock, the defendant, legal representative of the service provider 
Viti-compétences, based in Épernay and operating since 2020, claims he 
only discovered these appalling living conditions on September 7, 2023, 
when the Regional Health Agency (ARS) and the labor inspectorate came to 
confirm that the building was "contrary to human dignity." He quickly 
blames his former partner. This third party has not been prosecuted by 
the public prosecutor's office in this case. Since this associate, who 
no longer even had an employment contract at the time of the events, was 
also in charge of the administrative side of the business, the defendant 
also accuses him of being responsible for the inaccurate pre-employment 
declarations.

The defendant, extremely aggressive in his exchanges with the deputy 
public prosecutor and admitting only to "a lack of vigilance," is also 
being prosecuted for employing foreign workers without work permits and 
for undeclared work by declaring Polish workers (who would have been 
operating within the Schengen Area), rather than Ukrainian workers, in 
the pre-employment declarations.

Furthermore, he is accused of defrauding the MSA (French agricultural 
social security system) of EUR206,000 by underreporting wages and 
therefore social security contributions. "By making these false 
declarations, he gave credence to a lie, which constitutes 
embezzlement," argued the deputy prosecutor before requesting a 
three-year prison sentence, two years of which would be suspended, along 
with, among other things, a permanent ban on managing a company.

The verdict
On January 28, the Châlons-en-Champagne criminal court sentenced him to 
two years in prison. This sentence exceeded the prosecution's request of 
three years, one of which would be served. He is also prohibited from 
managing a commercial company and banned for ten years from purchasing 
real estate or commercial property. His company, Viti Compétences, was 
fined EUR350,000.

Regarding the civil action, the defendant will have to pay EUR206,000 to 
the MSA (Agricultural Social Security Fund), EUR3,000 for damages 
suffered, and an additional EUR1,000 for legal fees to the Comité 
Champagne (Champagne Committee), as well as EUR1,000 and EUR800 to the 
CGT Champagne inter-union group.

Camille, OCL Reims, February 2026

In the April issue, the appeal trial of a second case during the 2023 
grape harvest.

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4667
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en