Emmaus: the operation of two northern communities beneath the scrutiny of justice

The Lille court docket regarded this Thursday, June 13, on the actions of two communities, in a grey space between work and voluntary work. Their leaders are accused of secret work.

Have the unregistered members of two northern Emmaus communities, on strike for nearly a yr, gone undercover? The Lille court docket examined their work this Thursday, June 13, in a grey space between work and voluntary work.

Two males and a girl with grey hair dealing with a room stuffed with typically black faces, these of the strikers, all in irregular positions: three leaders of Halte-Saint-Jean in Saint-André-lez-Lille and of the Nieppe neighborhood parade on the bar.

This trial day, “it’s the day of our freedom. This strike is our honor that we’re defending”, summarizes the associate Ibrahima Yattara in court docket, saying that he felt “used, humiliated” on the Halte-Saint-Jean, the place he has been welcomed because the finish of 2018.

Trafficking certificates just isn’t accepted

Companions have the suitable to be housed, fed and profit from social help. They need to contribute, with none ties of subordination, to the actions of the communities, which survive from the sale of recycled merchandise.

The three managers should reply for covert work and, for the director of Halte-Saint-Jean, for ethical harassment towards two employees. The “trafficking in folks” certificates, for which the investigation was opened, was not held, a lot to the remorse of the comrades.

The motion created by Abbé Pierre is affected by a severe disaster within the north, which is questioning its mannequin, with the opening in Could 2023 of an investigation on the websites of Saint-André and Nieppe, and the publication of a strike by undocumented communities but in addition in Dunkirk.

The companions ask for regularization for the harm suffered. The president summarized their complaints: compelled working hours, decrease revenue than recommended by Emmaüs France, prices of paying for the lodging, obligation to work even once they have been sick, and so on.

“It’s essential to work till you give beginning”

The director of Halte-Saint-Jean, who can be the president of the Nieppe neighborhood, is described as “ubiquitous”, not very sympathetic besides with youngsters, and obsessive about conversion, which ‘threatened to scale back the members’ pension if the Gross sales will not be good, he reviews.

“We’re afraid to say that we’re sick,” stated Ibrahima Yattara, saying that he sacrificed (his life), 40 hours every week”.

“There isn’t any maternity depart, it’s a must to work till you give beginning and if you give beginning, it’s a must to return to work proper after,” says associate, Patrick Completely happy Nigerian.

Unbiased of one another however introduced collectively by Emmaüs France, round 120 French communities as we speak very a lot welcome foreigners in irregular conditions.

In 2008, the standing of Neighborhood Reception Organizations and Solidarity Actions (OACAS) was created, recognizing associates as solidarity employees and permitting them, by contributions to Urssaf of their communities, to learn from a pension and compensation if work ceases .

Reconsideration of OACAS standing was questioned

From 2018, a residence allow might be granted to a foreigner with three years of uninterrupted exercise in OACAS, in addition to integration alternatives.

Nonetheless, the communities of Nieppe and Saint-André needed to desert this standing in 2015. The employees clarify that they began their strike as a result of they felt that their prospects have been for regulation turns into extra unsure.

“If we have been giving all this time, it was for regularization,” Rodrigue Noumen Feumba, Nieppe’s associate, stated on the listening to, confirming that he had taken 4 days of depart. the 4 years.

The president is attempting to know why these two communities deserted the standing of OACAS, placing themselves in an “unavoidable state of affairs”.

The chief within the “hack”

If the director of Nieppe begins in, referring to the Board of Administrators, the director of Halte-Saint-Jean will undertake a extra political place, guaranteeing that “the authorized texts” introduced by immigrants with out doc into “unbalanced” Emmaus communities.

She claims that she was within the “hack” – the nickname – to guarantee that the Halte didn’t lose an excessive amount of cash and that she did every little thing to organize the companions to depart the neighborhood, for instance by to make them pay the bills, typically producing sad complaints within the room.

For Saïd Bouamama, of the committee of undocumented immigrants from the North, if this trial just isn’t the Emmaus trial as an entire, it is a chance to indicate by separating to solidarity insurance policies, that the State “has directed societies that should exist. the pursuit of revenue.