Several clusters have been detected in the south of France. In Vaucluse, and especially in Bouches-du-Rhône, on farms, around thirty patients have been identified on different sites. These are posted workers, these foreigners that farmers have been impatiently waiting to start harvesting fruits and vegetables. Now, this workforce may be lacking.
In Noves, in the north of the department, a campsite has been set up in the middle of the fields: this is where 130 foreign workers are gathered, of which ten have tested positive for Covid-19. The fortnight that was imposed on them was not very well accepted, since several of them sought to avoid it.
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"There is no allocated means for monitoring the site"
Jean-Philippe Matecki, deputy mayor of Noves, denounces a lack of surveillance on the part of the state services: "Two Spanish workers wanted to join their country. In their defense, they are no longer paid. I imagine that the 'we had a lack of pedagogy and that we should have maintained a presence of doctors and psychologists. But there is no allocated means for monitoring the site, there may be other cases, which worries residents, "he told Europe 1.
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A series of tests
These workers often work on several sites, which could encourage contamination. Some 2,000 tests have been launched, welcomes Patrick Levêque, president of the FNSEA of Bouches-du-Rhône. "Many employers of labor bring their employees to be detected. Who can know today if he has on his farm a worker who has been in contact with an infected person?" The results will be known in the coming days, but the farmers would have done well without this episode during the harvest period.