After 20 years of legal proceedings, the Maison des mates, SOS Racisme and former temporary workers obtained the correctional dismissal of Adecco, the Swiss specialist in temporary work, and two former directors for discrimination in hiring.
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"
Finally, we will be able to publicly judge a system of monstrous discrimination
," responded to AFP Samuel Thomas, president of the Maison des mates and former vice-president of SOS Racism at the origin of the procedure.
Twenty years ago, in March 2001, a judicial investigation was opened in Paris after a complaint from SOS Racisme.
The association had been alerted by a former employee in charge of recruitment in a Parisian Adecco agency of a classification of candidates with a code "PR IV" to specify people of color.
This code was intended to grant or refuse certain assignments, as room clerk or row managers in restaurants, to these candidates, when the client company requested "a BBR" (Bleu-Blanc-Rouge) or "non PR IV" , according to the employee.
This agency, Adecco Restauration Montparnasse, specializing in the hotel industry, worked among others with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Eurodisney and the Société des wagons-lits.
The “PR IV” code concerned people “
not knowing or not knowing how to read, and / or count and / or having difficulties adapting to the job,
” Adecco defended itself throughout the procedure.
"
All the people who were given this criterion were not black
", according to the company, recalling that the majority of its temporary workers were of foreign origin.
Indictment in 2018 of two former directors
In 2010, the investigating chamber overturned a first decision of the investigating judge, in accordance with the opinion of the prosecution, to drop the proceedings, and ordered new hearings and confrontations.
But seven years later, in January 2017, an examining magistrate again dismissed the case.
"
The existence and recourse
" to a specific classification of "
black
tempers (...) could not be clearly determined
", he had considered.
But in 2018 the investigative chamber, seized by the scandalized civil parties, had taken the opposite view of the magistrate.
"
It follows from the file serious or concordant clues making it likely
" that the company Adecco and two of its executives "
may have participated as an author or an accomplice
" in discrimination in hiring and in racial registration, she had estimated .
She had ordered the indictments of two former directors, Olivier Poulin and Mathieu Charbon, as well as Adecco, as a legal person, for discrimination and registration "
on account of origin, nationality or ethnicity
" .
500 potential victims
At a new hearing, on November 19, on the possibility of a trial, the general prosecutor's office had again requested that the proceedings be dropped.
"All the people affected by the PR IV criterion (have) worked anyway
" and "
obviously European people of white color (have been) assigned this criterion
", once again argued Adecco's lawyer and 'Olivier Poulin, Me François Vaccaro, sweeping aside the accusation of discrimination "
perfectly shocking and contrary to reality
".
Three months later, the investigating chamber did not follow their arguments and ordered a trial on Thursday for the company and the two men.
“
The challenge is to have a trial to show that there is no impunity.
Whatever the economic strength of a group or a company, the law must apply,
”said Samuel Thomas.
He hopes that the 500 potential victims “
can be informed that they can become civil parties to obtain compensation
”.
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Reached by AFP, Adecco said he had “
no comment to make on the current procedure
” and “
examine the possibility of an appeal
” before the Court of Cassation.
Contacted by AFP, the lawyers of the defendants could not be reached.
