Vinci Constructions Grands Projets is notably under investigation for “ working or living conditions incompatible with human dignity ».
A subsidiary of the French construction group Vinci was indicted on Wednesday by a judge in Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine) as part of an investigation into the working conditions of employees on certain construction sites linked to the Mondial-2022 at the Qatar, the group’s lawyer told AFP.
Vinci Constructions Grands Projets (VCGP) is in particular under investigation of the heads of “working or living conditions incompatible with human dignity“, said the lawyer, Me Jean-Pierre Versini-Campinchi, after complaints from NGOs and former Indian and Nepalese employees.
The representative of the group, when he was summoned before the investigating judge, “limited to expressing a protest relating to the insufficiency of the time granted to the lawyers to prepare the useful answers and the untimely choice of the date a few days before the opening of the Football World Cup“, again declared Me Versini-Campinchi.
Vinci’s subsidiary was “indictment according to the terms of the summons», Said for her part the director of the NGO Sherpa Sandra Cossart, who added that she was also accused of forced labor and reduction in servitude.
The case dates back to 2015, and a first complaint was dismissed in 2018. But complaints with civil action from the Sherpa and Committee against Modern Slavery (CCEM) associations, as well as Indian and Nepalese employees of these sites, led to the opening of an investigation by an investigating judge in November 2019.
Three sites are decried by the complainants: that of the “Light Rail» linking Doha to Lusail, a new city that will host the final of the FIFA World Cup; that of the Lusail underground car parks; as well as those of the construction site of the luxury Sheraton hotel, in the heart of Doha.
According to testimonies collected at the time by the NGO Sherpa, immigrant employees of Vinci on certain sites said they had worked – passport confiscated – between 66 and 77 hours a week. And they would have been crammed into cramped rooms with insufficient sanitary facilities, receiving remuneration unrelated to the work provided, threatened with dismissal or dismissal in their country in the event of claims.
«None of the projects» awarded to Qatari Diar Vinci Construction (QDVC) «is not boundat the World Cup in Qatar and they wereawarded (…) before the organization of this competition was awarded(in 2010) to this wealthy Gulf emirate, says Vinci. He recalls that the projects focused “essentially on transport infrastructure».