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A Doha business district, a public park or even a metro line. Huge Qatari projects led by Bouygues and subsidiaries of Vinci. Two French groups that would have called on a local cement factory, Beton Qatar. A company that employs and houses some of its workers in precarious conditions.
About forty kilometers from Doha, it is a huge cement factory in the middle of the desert. In the deafening noise of machines running 24 hours a day, hundreds of African and Asian workers work and live here. Ramou – his name has been changed – guides us to his dormitory, actually construction huts, where the ground is sometimes covered with mud. “sit down”, he invites us.
In this room of about 10 square meters, four people live, whereas Qatari law imposes a minimum of 6 square meters per worker. “Here is the kitchen“says Ramou in front of a makeshift stove. Here, the concrete and its dust do not stop at the bedroom doors. “If you don’t cover, everything will be white dust tomorrowsays our host. Since I’ve been working here, my chest hurts. Before, I had nothing“, he adds. Ramou claims to be paid around 1000 euros per month for 70 hours of work per week, seven days a week, without a single day off. Two years ago, he says he was the victim of a “a work accident. A few weeks after the accident, he claims to have been forced to return to his country of origin for treatment, at his own expense. After our shoot, we tried to contact his employer, Beton Qatar, the company that manages the cement plant. Without success. On its website, the company presents the projects in which it has participated and its customers in Qatar. Among them, two French groups, Bouygues, but also subsidiaries of the Vinci group: VCGP and QDVC. The volumes of concrete delivered for their works are also specified.
Were the French groups aware of the living and working conditions of their supplier’s workers, whom we met in the cement plant? When contacted, Bouygues told us that it did not want to communicate on its past sites. Here is Vinci’s response, joined this Wednesday, November 9: “We found in our archives very specific contracts dating back more than ten years with Béton Qatar. During our projects, we have implemented very strict procedures with subcontractors, but we cannot do this with all suppliers.“Vinci also specifies that it has dismissed several local companies which did not respect the rights of employees.