The French public prosecutor's office has opened a preliminary investigation into four textile companies accused of being involved in, or at least profiting from, the repression of Uyghurs in China.

The background to this is allegations that Chinese suppliers employ Uyghur forced laborers or process cotton that is harvested using forced labor.

The French investigations are led by the department for counter-terrorism, which is also responsible for cases of "crimes against humanity".

Friederike Böge

Political correspondent for China, North Korea and Mongolia.

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    Christian Schubert

    Business correspondent in Paris.

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      Patrick Welter

      Correspondent for business and politics in Japan, based in Tokyo.

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        The investigators are targeting the American sports shoe manufacturer Skechers, the Japanese brand Uniqlo, the Spanish Inditex group with the Zara brand and SMCP from France with brands such as Sandro, Maje, Claudie Pierlot and De Fursac.

        The investigation goes back to a complaint from various non-governmental organizations.

        The plaintiffs accuse the companies of profiting from forced labor or at least failing to prevent suppliers from making money from the persecution of the Uyghurs.

        The French Internet platform Mediapart was the first to report on the investigation.

        The French MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, who has long campaigned for the Uyghurs, called the investigation a "historic moment".

        Attorney William Bourdon, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the NGOs, expressed expectations that the investigation would "drop the masks of cynical textile companies."

        Other companies could now also be charged on charges of a “crime against humanity”.

        However, it is still unclear whether the preliminary investigation by the French public prosecutor's office will lead to a formal charge at all.

        Uighur forced laborers evicted from their homeland

        The complaint said plaintiffs focused on multinational corporations as it was unlikely that China's leadership could be held responsible in an independent court. For example, it says about Skechers shoes that they are made in a factory in Guangdong Province that employs Uyghurs as part of a worker transfer program. Hundreds of thousands of members of minorities from Xinjiang have been sent to other parts of the country through such programs.

        The Chinese government describes them as part of the fight against poverty.

        Chinese scholars who examined the programs, however, wrote in a 2019 report that it was an "important method of influencing, integrating and assimilating the Uighur minority".

        It was also said that some of the workers were “unwilling to leave their homes”.

        The BBC referred to a report on Chinese state television that showed that worker recruiters were going from house to house in a village and harassing potential workers.

        The report shows a woman who repeatedly expresses that she does not want to leave her home country and is sent away in the end.

        Textile company under pressure from two sides

        The allegations against Skechers are not new. The company announced in March of this year that announced and unannounced audits at the Guangdong supplier had revealed no evidence of forced labor in the past four years. The French complaint about SMCP states that one of its major shareholders owns the Chinese company Shandong Ruyi, which has been operating factories in the Xinjiang region since 2010. Inditex is said to have business relationships with fiber and fabric manufacturers in Xinjiang. The Spanish company has denied the allegations in a statement. It has carried out strict controls and can assure that the allegations are untrue. Meaningful audits in Xinjiang itself are now impossible due to the political conditions there.

        The Japanese company Fast Retailing, the company behind the Uniqlo brand, has denied an economic connection with Xinjiang since last year. On Friday, the company said it wanted to work with French investigators and show that no cotton from the region was used in Uniqlo products. The company says it monitors the working conditions of more than 600 suppliers in China and other countries. "If the problems with human rights occur in one of our factories or in cotton production, we immediately stop doing business with the suppliers," said company boss Tadashi Yanai in April.

        The textile companies are under pressure from two sides. China has just passed an anti-sanctions law that allows companies to be sued for damages if they adhere to sanctions in China that have been imposed by other countries.