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Kosan Kozmetik, a subsidiary of the Yves Rocher Group since 2012, manufactures Flormar brand beauty products in the Gebze industrial basin in Turkey.

Between March and September 2018, the subsidiary dismissed more than 130 of its employees, mostly women, who had just joined the Turkish trade union Petrol-Iş. These workers wanted to assert their rights in the face of the deplorable working conditions in the factory: very low wages, exposure to harmful products in the absence of suitable equipment, forced overtime, discrimination against women...

According to the summons served today by 34 former employees, ActionAid France, Sherpa and Petrol-Iş, these violations could have been avoided if the Yves Rocher Group had respected its duty of vigilance...

While the Yves Rocher Group has become a “mission-driven company” under French law and its CEO, Bris Rocher, has been entrusted by the Government with a mission on “responsible corporate governance”, the group has not made its vigilance plan public until 2020, after having been put on notice by the organisations. And its plans make no mention of the risks of violations of workers’ fundamental rights caused by the activities of its Turkish subsidiary, nor of the preventive measures taken to avoid them.

The claimants are asking the Paris Judicial Court to recognise that the Yves Rocher Group has failed to comply with its duty of vigilance, to order the company to take appropriate preventive measures and to pay damages for the harm suffered by the employees and by the union...