The elements of the report published by Amnesty International have already been the subject of discussion with Amnesty and our franchisee Majid Al Futtaim Retail for several months. We have taken Amnesty's warnings very seriously and we have immediately asked our partner MAF to conduct internal investigations among its employees and subcontractors in Saudi Arabia. These initial investigations did not confirm the elements identified by Amnesty's alert, but did reveal other problems relating to housing, training or the monitoring of working hours, for which corrective actions were taken and forwarded to Amnesty by letter on September 16.

In order to prevent potential human rights non-compliance situations within our franchise partner's direct and indirect operations, we decided to extend our investigations with an audit by an independent expert; which has been appointed. We are currently working with him to establish the terms of his audit. Carrefour ensures that its partners respect human rights, and together with MAF will take all necessary measures in the event of non-compliance. We will discuss the results of this audit and any action plans with Amnesty during a forthcoming meeting.