Latest update : 2014-11-07
Eighteen undocumented workers have staged a three-month sit-in a beauty parlour in one of Paris’s vibrant immigrant quarters. Despite suffering perilous journeys to get to France, and exploitation upon arrival, they refuse to give up.
The hair and nail salon at 57 boulevard de Strasbourg in Paris’s north-eastern Château d'Eau neighbourhood is not what it used to be. The cushy salon chairs have lost their sheen, a hairdressing basin now serves as an ashtray and scattered and empty hair dye tubes give off a toxic stench.It’s been close to 100 days since the last customer walked through the doors of “le 57”, as the French media has taken to calling the shop. However, its employees are bent on staying for as long as it takes.
On June 7 they jumped for joy at the news they had won work contracts after a three-week strike the CGT union helped them organise, but their elation was short lived. Just one week later the owners closed New York Fashion, as the salon was then named. When the hairdressers occupied the premises, employers filed a legal request to have them forcibly evicted.
On Thursday a Paris judge denied the eviction request, offering a glimmer of hope to the 18 immigrants who fear they will be deported at a moment’s notice.
“It’s a symbolic victory,” said Maryline Poulain, a union organiser with CGT, which has decided to continue helping the workers with the moral and legal support they need. “Now the government must pick its camp. Either they side with these people, or with the mafias who exploited them.”
The workers have filed their own suit against the former bosses, accusing them of bankruptcy fraud and enslavement, among other alleged charges.
Death threats
Château d'Eau is littered with salons like “le 57”. African immigrants, with or without legal residence status, flock to the area for specialised hair and beauty services. But the situation at the occupied shop is virtually unprecedented, and the workers have not received sympathetic treatment from others in the neighbourhood.
Around 1,500 people are believed to work in the myriad hair and nail salons in the area without official job contracts, because the vast majority of them also have no legal status in France.
"We worked from 9am to 11pm, six days a week, sometimes on holidays," said Fatou, a 42-year-old woman from the Ivory Coast who arrived in France illegally last year. She said bosses paid them just a fraction of what was negotiated at the time they were hired, if they paid them at all.
Many in the bustling neighbourhood profit from and are keen to preserve the system. The workers of "le 57" now suffer constant intimidation and have been threatened with physical harm, even death.
“The hairdressers no longer feel safe in the neighbourhood,” said the CGT’s Poulain, who has been threatened with decapitation for helping the group. “The neighbourhood and the salons are controlled by Nigerian networks, police struggle to build a case against them.”
‘Honey-coated poison’
The stories the undocumented workers recount about their journeys to France – and their arrival at “le 57” – are as diverse as they are frightening.
Alphonse, a 28-year-old native of Burkina Faso who used to work the cash register, applied for asylum a few years ago, but his request has been rejected by the French authorities.
“They get you with honey-coated poison. They gain your confidence then turn on you,” he said of his experience with the employer of the once busy salon. “The boss would fix the books, lie about how much he owed you. Since we occupied the place, it’s like a jungle outside. They are like animals waiting to strike.”
Daniel and his wife said they left their hometown of Oko, in south-eastern Nigeria, because, as Christians, they felt persecuted. They left for Libya, where they boarded a raft bound for Italy. They were rescued from their sinking vessel by Italian police. Some of their fellow travellers were not so lucky.
Smugglers in Sicily told them a ticket to Zurich was 50,000 euros. They could also cover the sum by providing certain services, namely drug trafficking and prostitution.
Months later, jobless and with a newborn baby in Paris, Daniel leapt at the chance to work at “le 57”. His 15-hour-per-day job consisted of mixing and preparing hair dyes, in a windowless room in the salon’s basement. “I get severe headaches and have trouble sleeping,” he says of the effects of the hair dye chemicals.
Precious, a 29-year-old Nigerian mother of four, says she can’t smell the chemicals anymore. In fact, there is little she can still smell. Shunned by her husband at the age of 18, a local “Madame” promised to get her to Europe. “I had to, my life was miserable back home.”
She did reach Europe, with a 65,000 euro debt she was forced to pay back by prostituting herself on the streets of Palermo. Reaching France, she was homeless for months with her children. A job in Château d'Eau allowed her to feed her children on a daily basis. She did not ask any questions.
When asked today what they hope for from their future, replies are short: get back to work, but legally.
"I want to stay here, I never want to prostitute myself again,” said Precious. “I am a good hairdresser. I just want to work, so I can pay for my kids' school lunch.”
Date created : 2014-11-07
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