French justice is interested in a Qatari subsidiary of Vinci. The construction group announced Monday, November 7 in a press release the summons before an examining magistrate, Wednesday in Nanterre, of its subsidiary Vinci Construction Grands Projets “with a view to a possible indictment”, as part of an investigation into working conditions on building sites in Qatar. The newspaper The Parisian reported this information on Sunday. The French company says it refute the accusations, in particular of ” forced labor “ and of “human trafficking”two weeks before the opening of the World Cup.
The investigation was opened in November 2019, after complaints from the Sherpa and Committee against Modern Slavery (CCEM) associations, as well as from seven Indian and Nepalese employees who worked on these sites. The plaintiffs accuse Vinci, Vinci Construction Grands Projets (VCGP), its Qatari subsidiary Diar Vinci Construction (QDVC) and their representatives of “reduction in servitude, trafficking in human beings, work incompatible with human dignity, deliberate endangerment, involuntary injuries and concealment” in particular, according to the complaint consulted by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Up to 77 hours of work per week
vinci “has continued to vigorously refute the allegations made against him concerning construction sites in Qatar carried out by the company QDVC” and “will continue to collaborate with justice”explains the group, on Monday, in his press release.
Six plaintiff testimonies collected by Sherpa, which The world had been able to consult in November 2018, evoke up to sixty-seven hours of work per week under temperatures between 40 and 50 ° C, for very low remuneration. “Because of the heat and the humidity, I saw people throwing up, and falling like that on the ground”, says one of them. Witnesses also refer to confiscations of passports.
In response, the company told the World have “always working to improve working conditions in Qatar”, citing “discussions initiated in December 2014” with the Building and Wood Workers’ International.
“None of the projects awarded to QDVC are related to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar” and they were “assigned (…) before the organization of this competition was awarded” to this wealthy Gulf emirate, says Vinci. He recalls that the projects have focused “basically on transport infrastructure”.
“We tried in vain to convince the magistrate that it was not particularly appropriate after seven and a half years of investigation to consider an indictment in the opening fortnight of the Football World Cup”reacted to AFP on Monday, Vinci’s lawyer Jean-Pierre Versini-Campinchi, who fears “a media tumult”.
“If an indictment were pronounced against Vinci, this would confirm that multinationals are finding it increasingly difficult to hide behind value chains, the fact that it would be ‘too complicated’ to act, and would remind us that legally , voluntary measures of improvement do not make it possible to escape the risk of penal sanction in the event of suspicion of infringement “retains for its part the NGO Sherpa, at the origin of the complaint with civil action.