As François Hollande gets ready for a state visit to Qatar on June 23, it’s likely that French construction firms will be lobbying for a greater piece of the 100 US billion the Gulf state is expected to spend on infrastructure projects ahead of hosting of the World Cup in 2022.
While President Hollande, like any head of state, has the right to promote domestic industry, he should at least mention the slave-like conditions experienced by the majority of Qatar’s workers.
Most live in squalid labour camps, where a dozen men are crammed into a small, hot room with 40 men sharing a toilet.
Summer heat regularly passes 45 degrees in the desert peninsula, and workers building stadiums, skyscrapers and now a major rail project – where French companies are major contractors – should have wages above 220 US dollars per month, basic collective bargaining rights and the choice to freely leave their jobs.
Qatar, the world’s richest country on a per capita basis due to its massive natural gas exports, meets none of these basic international standards on labour conditions. This systematic injustice is compounded by the almost unimaginable wealth of the native population.
Ten per cent of Qatar’s 300,000 citizens are millionaires, the highest concentration of seven figure earners on earth.
Making up less than 15 per cent of the population of 1.9 million people, Qatari nationals are among the most pampered people in the history of humanity.
The Kefala system means foreign workers cannot leave the country without an exit permit, a computerised immigration document controlled by their employer.
Other Gulf countries, including Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE do not use such a draconian system of control.
Zahir Belounis
It isn’t just thousands of low-wage labourers who are affected by Qatar’s repressive Kefala system.
French footballer Zahir Belounis has been trapped in Qatar, along with his wife and daughters, without salary or the right to leave, for the last 23 months.
He was given a temporary citizenship by the Qataris to play for their team in an international military tournament.
After that, he played for some local teams before falling into a dispute over which team he would end up playing for. Now he is stuck in permanent limbo. President Hollande should, at the very least, demand that he be allowed to return home.
France has unique bargaining power with the Qataris.
Home to a major US air base, Qatar allowed American forces to use its territory to launch the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Yet, despite Uncle Sam’s protection, Qatar worries the Americans will back their rivals in Saudi Arabia if a long-simmering dispute between the two neighbours erupts again.
To hedge its bets, Doha has looked to Paris for security guarantees in a neighbourhood where Iran looms large and as a safe investment home for its petro-dollars.
In the last few years, the Qataris have been snapping up French assets, including the richest football club in France, Paris St-Germain, sports broadcasting rights, chunks of the oil firm Total and luxury conglomerate LVMH, Paris’s Concorde Lafayette Hotel and a host of other high-end properties – often with special tax exemptions.
They have even enticed former President Nicholas Sarkozy into acting as an “investment advisor” to Qatar for a reported three million euros per year.
Ostracised
If President Hollande is truly willing to stand up for French values, he should demand an immediate end to the Kefala system so workers can form independent organisations to bargain collectively with employers.
If the political price for this is too high, he could at least demand an end to the exit permit system and demand a decent grievance procedure to handle complaints of abuse from workers, including French citizens.
If Qatar’s absolute monarchy continues to refuse to comply with basic international norms, they should be ostracised from the international community.
Allowing a repressive, petrol-rich state to simply buy legitimacy in Paris and beyond sends a terrible message.
Qatar is well aware of its dubious domestic treatment of foreigners and has been trying to buy friends abroad to compensate for repression at home.
In a bid to boost the state’s “soft power”, Qatari officials have been pouring money into international political projects, including support for Egypt’s Islamist President Mohamed Morsi and the Brotherhood’s Tunisian counterpart Ennahada.
Qatar has also, allegedly, been supporting fundamentalist rebels who are battling French soldiers in Mali.
As part of this attempt to purchase targeted support, Qatar plans to invest 50 million US dollars in Paris’s primarily Muslim suburbs under the guise of “economic development”.
If the goal was truly lifting people out of poverty, a sensible observer would assume Qatar would be investing closer to home – in Somalia, Yemen or Chad, for example, rather than in one of the world’s richest countries.
But the goal of Qatar’s financial largesse in Paris’ suburbs seems to be political, rather than humanitarian or even economic.
