Adecco France along with two former directors of the firm faced the Paris court yesterday over hiring discrimination complaints stretching back more than 20 years.

In March 2021, the Paris Court of Appeal ruled send Adecco France and two former directors of the firm to trial. Adecco France was accused of discrimination in hiring and registration ‘because of origin, nationality or ethnicity’ of 500 temporary workers between 1997 and 2001.

According to Liberation.fr, Adecco France appeared yesterday before the 31st criminal chamber of the Paris judicial court, along with the two former directors. According to the civil parties, including the SOS Racisme and Maison des Potes associations, the group’s hiring practices made it possible to exclude around 500 black temporary workers from certain assignments, at the request of certain employers, who, for their part, are not summoned to appear in the court.

The legal battle with SOS Racisme and the Maison des Potes has lasted over 20 years. Adecco has continued to contest the issue despite two decades of negative publicity that has resulted from the case.

“There were three dismissals in this case ,” Samuel Thomas, former vice president of SOS Racisme, and current president of the Maison des Potes told RadioFrance. "Four or five judges have succeeded one another. Today, this trial is already a victory. It must result in a strong response to condemn these unworthy practices.”

SOS Racisme had been alerted by a former employee in charge of recruitment at Adecco France of a classification of candidates with a code "PR IV" to specify people of colour. According to the employee, the code was aimed at granting or refusing certain roles to these candidates, when the client company claimed "no PR IV".

Adecco stated that the “PR IV" code concerned people who "could not or little read, and/or count and /or had difficulty adapting to the job,”. It added that “not all the people who were given this criterion were black.” Adecco France also stated the majority of its temporary workers were of foreign origin. The case had been investigated many times. 

In 2017, an examining magistrate dismissed the case, adding ‘the existence and recourse "to a specific classification of " black-coloured temporary workers could not be clearly determined”.

However, in 2018 the investigative chamber had opposed the 2017 examination stating that ‘Adecco and two of its executives may have participated as an author or an accomplice" in discrimination in hiring and in racial registration.

The magistrate ordered the indictments of two former directors, Olivier Poulin and Mathieu Charbon, as well as Adecco, as a legal person, for discrimination and registration "because of origin, nationality or ethnicity”.

The last hearing at the Court of Appeals in Paris scheduled the defendants to appear before the court on 28 September 2023.

An Adecco spokesperson said, “100% of our employees have been made aware of and trained in the fight against discrimination. Recruitment is based solely on competence and aptitude for the positions.” The spokesperson added that in a ‘testing’ survey conducted by SOS Racisme, Adecco did not appear among the poor performers.

“The purpose of this hearing will be to verify the existence and veracity of this file,” the spokesperson continued.

Adecco told ActuParis, “We condemn and sanction all behaviour that may be contrary to the law and the values ​​of our company. The fight against all forms of discrimination has been a priority for the Adecco Group for many years, at all levels of the company. The instruction we give to our agencies is that no discrimination is acceptable or justifiable.”

Adecco faces a fine of €1.65 million. The two former agency directors risk a fine of €330,000 and seven years in prison. SIA reached out to Adecco for further comment.