On this late February morning, Boulaye Sylla is only a shadow of himself. His skinny legs seem almost too long on the sofa where he sits, surrounded by two of his great-uncles. In the family living room in Asnières-sur-Seine (Hauts-de-Seine), the 25-year-old Mauritanian stammers a few words of French in a barely audible whisper. His uncle Soumare Silly translates the questions into Soninké, a language spoken in West Africa. Boulaye Sylla’s dark eyes often take on an absent look, as if he were still haunted by the brutal death of his father.
“Yesterday, a man died following a work accident, declared the deputy La France insoumise (LFI) Alexis Corbière in the National Assembly on July 13, 2022. I want this terrible death not to be trivialized. » This man’s name was Moussa Sylla, he was a cleaning agent. He lost his life the day before the session at the Assembly, after his head violently hit a wall in the basement of the Palais-Bourbon.
Arriving in France in 2003, Moussa Sylla took on odd jobs and obtained his papers ten years later. Each month, he sends a large part of his salary to his mother, wife and two sons, who live together in a mud house in Ould M’Bonny, an agricultural village in southern Mauritania. He has two jobs, the first as a cleaning agent, employed by the company Europ Net, a subcontractor of the National Assembly, which earns him 900 euros monthly. The second for the service company Sodexo for which he earns 600 euros per month. The Mauritanian endures a grueling pace for a salary barely higher than the minimum wage. “He never told me clearly, but I knew he was tired,” confides his son.
A solidarity movement led by Rachel Keke
On July 9, 2022, Boulaye Sylla was informed by telephone that his father had just had a serious accident. The young man, who left college in 3e, then worked in a grocery store in his village. He remembers this call perfectly, it was Eid-el-Fitr, the Muslim holiday marking the breaking of the fast in the month of Ramadan. Three days later, his father died in hospital from his injuries. “His death was a great shock,” he stammers today.
In the National Assembly, a solidarity movement quickly took shape. A week after the announcement of Moussa Sylla’s death, a tribute was organized at Place du Président-Edouard-Herriot, a stone’s throw from the Palais-Bourbon. Hand in hand with cleaning unions and Assembly staff, Nupes MPs are making noise around the drama, led by Rachel Keke. The LFI elected official from Val-de-Marne, originally from the Ivory Coast, was familiar with subcontracting and its difficulties: she led a long fight for the rights of the chambermaids at the Ibis-Batignolles hotel. , in Paris, before sitting at the Palais-Bourbon in June 2022.
You have 59.62% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.