Mourens (France) (AFP)

"It's going to be the best, we're going out for a while, the fridge will fill up nicely": Henri Nicolas, like his partner Thérèse Lafleur, will be able to combine his salary as a picker with a few hundred euros per month of social assistance.

At the chateau of Viaut in Mourens, located about fifty km south of Bordeaux, owners in need of grape harvesters and seasonal rejoice in this first test launched this year by the departmental council of the Gironde, like other departments .

"It's very good," confirms Mrs. Lafleur, who will be able to keep the Active Solidarity Income (RSA) while working in the vineyards.

Until now, she could not do more than a certain number of hours a week, or her allowance would be reduced as she had bitter experience.

"Last year, I worked a bit and they gave me 180 euros instead of 320 .... It's not normal, it's not that we do not want to work, but if we In fact, we lose everything, "explains the 50-year-old, regretting the time when, younger, she had no difficulty finding a job.

To keep the RSA without limiting the number of hours worked: this removes a "blockage", says the owner of the castle of Viaut, Françoise Boudat, who regularly hires this couple for work in the vineyards for 15 years.

It hosts in all a dozen seasonal for the harvest: Spanish, Romanians, Portuguese and among the French, many travelers.

"It has always been difficult to have pickers," notes this viticulturist, the fifth generation to succeed on these lands of Entre-deux-Mers. "My parents brought Spaniards and hippies," she recalls.

- Lack of seasonal workers -

Housing and transportation - real brakes to accommodate seasonal workers - are not really involved here because the farm provides them with a home. And the majority of grape harvests being done today by machine, the need for personnel remains limited.

But for the harvest of its sweet wines of Sainte-Croix-du-Mont, on the edge of the Garonne, the castle claims the competent hand of work. "The problem is that for the sweet, we have to do very good tries and if we do not have qualified people, we will spend time to explain to them." And before they understand what he You have to really pick it up, they can cut grapes with bad decay and not noble rot, "says Boudat.

Other barriers to the recruitment of seasonal workers: communication difficulties with people who sometimes can not read or write, unattractive wages that often do not exceed the SMIC, physical hardship, lack of valorization of the sector, risks in health term with the use of toxic products.

Added to this is the very early start of universities, which eliminates students, and the very short duration of the harvest.

Result: winemakers, lack of arms are reduced to using recruitment companies, or pass ads on the internet ...

But of the 40,500 beneficiaries of the RSA in Gironde, only a hundred responded in September to work in market gardening or viticulture in the largest vineyard in France.

"We experiment from September to December, then we will evaluate to see if the device is convincing," says Jean-Luc Gleize, chairman of the departmental council at the initiative of this help to return to employment. We will see if there can be sustainability and extension to other sectors such as tourism ".

© 2019 AFP