According to “Le Parisien”, an examining magistrate must indict a manager of the French group on November 9. One of its subsidiaries has been accused since 2015 of modern slavery.
Less than two weeks before the start of the World Cup, an investigating judge at the Nanterre tribunal de grande instance (Hauts-de-Seine) is preparing to indict one of the largest French construction groups for its activities in Qatar. According The ParisianRichard Foltzer a “summoned the legal representative of a subsidiary of […] the company Vinci Construction Grands Projets (VCGP), with a view to an indictment for its role in several projects carried out in the emirate from 2011 and with a view to the organization of the Mondial”. The date is set for Wednesday, November 9.
For several years, suspicions have weighed on the multinational concerning the working and accommodation conditions of the employees of its subsidiary in Qatar, which would be contrary to human dignity. In 2015, the NGO Sherpa had filed a complaint, ensuring that employees, recruited, like many of the small hands to work in Qatar, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan, signed “Contracts that are difficult to understand for them, before finding themselves working six days a week in temperatures of around 50°C”. A first investigation had however been dismissed in early 2018 in Nanterre.
Different conclusions a day before the World Cup
As reminded The Parisian, the prosecution had initially closed the file because the testimonies of the workers were anonymous and they spoke of the Lusail site in which Vinci did not participate. In addition, the hearings of the directors and executives of the group “did not allow, according to the magistrates, to highlight a deliberately offending strategy on the part of the Vinci group in Qatar”. In 2022, and a few days before the launch of the World Cup, the conclusions are therefore different.
This timing is for Jean-Pierre Versini-Campinchi, the group’s lawyer interviewed by the daily, no coincidence: “This is Time.news of an announced indictment since the lawyers obviously do not have the time to read the documents in the file to present the necessary observations – in law as in fact – in such a short time. The decision of the magistrate to maintain his summons for the date of November 9, ten days before the opening of the World Cup in Qatar, in this case that has been open for seven and a half years, has it not for purpose of creating media hype?”