French trial exposes human trafficking among champagne workers
- CNL Reporter
- June 21, 2025
- News
- French
- 0 Comments
Conditions for grape-pickers in France’s champagne business lie at the heart of a human trafficking trial that has opened in the eastern city of Reims.
Three people – a woman from Kyrgyzstan, a man from Georgia and a Frenchman – are accused of exploiting more than 50 seasonal workers, mainly from West Africa.The workers – all undocumented migrants – were found during the 2023 September harvest living in cramped and unhygienic conditions in a building at Nesle-le-Repons, southwest of Reims in the heart of champagne country.
They had been recruited via a Whatsapp group message for the West African Soninke ethnic community living in Paris, which promised “well-paid work” in the Champagne region.Aged between 16 and 65 at the time, the 48 men and nine women came from Mali, Mauritania, Ivory Coast and Senegal. Many are attending Thursday’s trial.
“They shouted at us in Russian and crammed us into this broken-down house, with mattresses on the floor,” Kanouitié Djakariayou, 44, told La Croix newspaper.”There was no clean water, and the only food was a bowl of rice and rotten sandwiches.
“What we lived through there was truly terrible. We were traumatised by the experience. And we have had no psychological support, because when you have no papers, you have no rights either,” Doumbia Mamadou, 45, told the local newspaper L’Union.
Tipped off a week later by a local resident, labour inspectors visited the scene and documented conditions which “were a serious breach of the occupants’ safety, health and dignity,” in the words of state prosecutor Annick Browne.
The prosecution says living and eating areas were outside, unprotected from the elements; toilets were filthy; showers were inadequate with only intermittent hot water; and the electrics were a safety hazard.
