This Is How France Exploits Irregular Immigrants to Build the 2024 Paris Olympics

After launching an inciting media campaign to boycott the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar under the pretext of denouncing the poor conditions of workers at the World Cup construction sites, media outlets revealed the involvement of local French companies in exploiting migrant and irregular workers in the construction sites for the 2024 Olympic Games, which will be held in Paris between July 26 and August 11.

It is noteworthy that the Organizing Committee of the Paris Olympic Games had confirmed that it had placed a monitoring device in the work sites, but the testimonies collected by the French newspapers undermine and refute these assurances.

These accusations come at a time when the French government says it wants to settle the conditions of workers in sectors that witness a shortage of workers and after a wave of calls and incitement campaigns by political officials and Western media to boycott the 2022 World Cup hosted by Qatar, denouncing allegations of worker conditions in the World Cup construction sites, while Doha considers this propaganda to be politicized and based on false and misleading information.

Whereas activists believe that the rights of workers are the same in the West and the East, hoping to hear condemnations and denunciations from the international community of violations of workers’ rights in France because talking about workers only in Qatar is considered racism.

 

Migrant Workers Abuses

The French newspapers Le Monde and Liberation flared a loud scandal about the exploitation of irregular migrant workers, who do not have residency papers or work contracts, to work on projects designated for the Olympic Games that Paris will host in 2024.

In two separate investigations, Liberation met ten Malian citizens who are in France illegally, as they are employed by a contracting company working on projects for the Paris Olympics, in light of the French government’s silence on this exploitation.

In its investigation, it said that these workers perform hard work; some of them carry cement bags weighing tens of kilograms and climb 13 floors with them, while others specialize in building reinforced concrete.

It added that “these workers, who do not enjoy any social and legal security, work for about 80 euros a day secretly and without any permission, in harsh climatic conditions, and without benefiting from a day off.”

Whereas the workers whom Le Monde newspaper interviewed at the Sports City site in Seine-Saint-Denis denounced the working conditions, as one of them said: “We do not have rights or employment contracts. We do not have work clothes, and we are not provided with safety shoes. We do not charge for the transportation ticket. We do not have the right to medical examinations, and if one of us gets sick or injured, they replace him the next day without any compensation.”

It quoted one of the workers as saying, “The French do not want this work. Therefore, there are only migrants on the site. Pakistanis for electricity, Arabs for plumbing, Afghans for construction…and the whites in the offices.”

In response to a question by the newspaper on the subject, Bernard Thibault, a member of the Organizing Committee for the 2024 Paris Olympics, said, “The Olympic Games in France are not organized like the World Cup in Qatar.”

He added: “We realize companies can go through loopholes, but we have a slightly more sophisticated monitoring system, with a committee on construction sites, with permanent staff. This allows us to identify cases.”

Despite these beautiful words, Moussa (one of the migrant workers) feels disgusted and says: “We are not documented because France does not want to organize us, but the Olympic Games cannot take place without us.”

An investigation was opened regarding the reality of the violations against the workers of the Paris Olympic Games last June, and this follows three fatal accidents and dozens of serious accidents on construction sites in the Ile-de-France region in recent weeks, according to a report by L’Humanité on March 15, 2022.

The newspaper also said that the accumulation of major construction work in Paris increases the possibility of fatal accidents, noting that a daily death occurs in France as a result of these construction works, noting that the dead workers are often without names and remain unknown because of their forged work papers.

It is noteworthy that the public sector in France suffers from the same problems as the private sector, whether in construction or cleaning or in other sectors where there is a significant shortage of manpower.

In light of the violations that have been exposed recently, France is currently moving towards implementing a new law to attract foreign workers, as well as dealing with the mounting pressures of the extreme right to control migration, and with the approaching date of presenting the bill to the House of Representatives, reactions rejecting this bill continued within the far-right parties, according to Le Figaro newspaper.

The main lines of the Migration and Asylum Bill include tougher deportations, faster asylum procedures, and controversial regulation of illegal workers.

The newspaper pointed out that some parliamentarians from the right-wing Republican Party announced their refusal to agree to one of the most important points of the Immigration and Asylum Law related to the French government’s proposal to grant a residence permit to irregular immigrants who can be used to work in sectors that witness a shortage of labor.

 

Double Standards

These irregular migrant workers were going through this in Paris while the mayor of the French capital, Anne Hidalgo, was calling for a boycott of the World Cup in Qatar through her decision to ban giant screens and ban fan areas in protest against the conditions for organizing the tournament in terms of the environmental and social aspect, as she claimed.

In response to Hidalgo’s decision, a repeated message was observed written on some sidewalks in the main streets of the French capital, especially near the municipal building and at some of its entrances, as an expression of denunciation of the double standards of the Paris municipality in dealing with the Qatar World Cup.

The activists behind this campaign criticizing the Paris municipality wrote: “Boycott Total for workers’ rights, not the World Cup…Boycott Lafarge for financing ISIS, not the World Cup.”

Last October, the French newspaper Le Canard enchaîné sharply attacked Qatar and its national team and portrayed them as terrorists.

The newspaper published a controversial cover and headlines, as well as a cartoon depicting the Qatari national team players as terrorists carrying weapons and ammunition with anger and brutality on their faces.

The newspaper also used the headline Qatar, Behind the Scenes, and wrote that it reviews the employment file and the complex political relations between Paris and Doha, especially that the famous French football club, Paris Saint-Germain, is owned by the Qatar Investment Authority.

On the other hand, human rights activists described these accusations against Qatar as political hypocrisy and political trading.

 

Blatant Exploitation

French newspaper investigations about the exploitation of illegal foreign workers by local subcontractors to work in the preparation of vital facilities for the 2024 Paris Olympics came at a time when some Western media, especially the French, criticized Qatar’s organization of the World Cup, raising concerns about the conditions of foreign workers in the Middle Eastern country.

On the eve of the start of the World Cup in Qatar, FIFA President Gianni Infantino opened fire on critics, saying: “Slogans and moral lessons reveal hypocrisy, and working circumstances in Qatar are superior to those of European migrants.”

On the other hand, Western hypocrisy and its double standards are evident in the way it turns a blind eye when migrants drown in the Mediterranean and don’t pay attention to the violations of the United States when it brings manual laborers to work for low wages in American farms, in addition to the West’s indifference when confronted with its colonial legacy and its support for dictatorial governments in developing countries.

In turn, German journalist Stefan Buchen wrote in an article on December 3, 2022, that “the focus on the fatal exploitation of the workers who built the World Cup stadiums in Qatar might make you think that Europe wasn’t playing along in the international division of labor. How many thousands of garment workers have died at work sewing clothes for the West’s sprawling middle classes?

He added, “How many miners who dug valuable metals out of pits in South Africa and elsewhere for the German automotive industry have fallen ill and wasted away?”

He continued, “How many Indonesian foresters have had to make way for palm oil plantations so that Europe’s drivers can mix a bit of biodiesel into their fuel to solve their ecological conscience?”

Jochen also stressed that “Europe’s outsourcing of labor from abroad is in full swing in order to pay its prosperity bill.”