Champagne grape harvest: investigation opened for “undeclared work” and “unfit housing” after the closure of two overcrowded hotels

While the grape harvest is in full swing in France , from Burgundy to Bordeaux, via Champagne, the working conditions of the thousands of small hands armed with pruning shears are still being questioned.

On Wednesday, August 3, the prosecutor of Châlons-en-Champagne announced the opening of an investigation into "undeclared work" and "unfit housing" following the closure of two overcrowded hotels housing more than 150 Bulgarian and Polish grape harvesters who had come to pick grapes for champagne.

"Investigations carried out by the Vitry-le-François gendarmerie brigade with the support of the labor inspectorate are ongoing," but "no hearings or indictments have been carried out" at this stage, prosecutor Annick Browne added to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

In recent days, two hotels in Vitry-le-François (Marne) have been forced to close by municipal decrees following inspections showing they were overcrowded, the Marne prefecture told AFP. 60 to 90 occupants in around 35 rooms, makeshift mattresses in the corridors, stoves for food: "We are no longer in the time of Zola," stressed the Socialist Party mayor of the town, Jean-Pierre Bouquet.

The first hotel, La Cloche, closed on August 27 after an inspection following "a report," and housed "60 grape harvesters," according to the prefecture. These Bulgarian seasonal workers were temporarily housed in a gymnasium in the town, before being transferred by their employer to another hotel in Soissons, according to the mayor, reports AFP.

The second, Au Bon Séjour, housed "96 people" when it was closed on September 1st following a planned inspection. Its website states that it offers 32 rooms. The grape harvesters, mostly Polish according to the mayor, were "rehoused by their employer," according to the prefecture.

On July 21, three people were sentenced to prison for human trafficking . A service company had hired 57 foreign workers for the grape harvest without paying them wages and housing them in appalling conditions. In 2023, five seasonal workers died in the vineyards, killed by the heat and exhaustion caused by the work.

The major producers subcontract 75% of their supplies to small producers, who mostly rely on contractors to recruit labor. Directed by whistles and paid by the task, the seasonal workers employed by contractors, most of them foreign, receive 20 to 22 euro cents per kilo harvested. Champagne has not yet finished with its shameful harvests.