The manager of the Breton poultry collection company Prestavic, which employed undocumented Africans, was sentenced on Thursday July 6 to two years in prison for human trafficking by the Brest criminal court. Marc S., 64, was also sentenced to a fine of 15,000 euros as well as a permanent ban on administering or managing a company.
His wife Alice K., 38, tried for complicity, was sentenced to one year in prison, including six months suspended. The court also sentenced Marc S., individually or jointly with his wife, to pay 167,000 euros in damages to sixteen of his former employees, mostly Ivorians, with compensation ranging from 6,500 euros to 30,000 euros depending on the case. .
During the hearing on May 25, the prosecution had requested four years in prison with a warrant of committal against the manager of this company based in Saint-Sauveur (Finistère) and two years in prison, one of which is suspended, against his spouse. .
“Front” contracts and insults denounced
The lawyer for the Franco-Ivorian couple Me Pierre Tracol said to himself “a little confused” as to the conviction of his client for which he had pleaded for release. The latter, a former poultry collector who arrived from Côte d’Ivoire in 2017, was being prosecuted for having participated in the recruitment of several of her compatriots, to whom the couple promised regularization.
“She was able to call one or the other, but to say that she was able to participate in hiring people, that seems questionable to us”said M.e Tracol at Agence France-Presse. Marc S. had refuted at the hearing having promised papers to his employees, while admitting to having “been a bit light in management” new recruits, from whom he did not ask for proper papers, for lack of personnel.
The low salaries, “frontage” contracts, insults, long hours, the non-respect of daily rest and the coldness of the premises were denounced. The workers, who collected poultry from Breton breeders to load them into trucks for the slaughterhouse, were housed in unsanitary or unfit accommodation.
The night work extended from 5 p.m. to 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. the next morning, sometimes later during holiday periods, according to their testimonies. The hours of transport and waiting between two loads were not or little remunerated. “If you complained, we told you: we will repatriate you to Paris”testified one of them.