France Investigation

Portuguese housekeepers describe daily ordeal of working for France's upper classes

France's upper classes look upon housemaids and housekeepers from Portugal as the most honest of domestic staff and as “pearls who they must hold on to at all costs”. Yet behind the walls of these families' sumptuous properties there lurks another world; one in which class differences are very much alive. Mediapart has spoken to Portuguese maids and housekeepers working in the north of France and heard their stories of long hours, unrelenting toil and penny-pinching employers. Mickaël Correia reports.

Mickaël Correia

19 August 2020 à 07h04

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Rosa's deeply-lined hands meticulously turn the pages of a spiral-bound notebook. Here, in neat handwriting, she has recorded a lifetime of domestic work. “There you are, I noted it down here: 7.15 euros net an hour. That was my salary as a housekeeper at the end of 2017 after thirty years of work. They declared me [editor's note, to the authorities] but they also paid me quite a lot of hours on the black,” the diminutive 63-year-old told Mediapart*.

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Since January 7, 2023 our colleague and friend Mortaza Behboudi has been imprisoned in Afghanistan, in the Taliban prisons.

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#FREEMORTAZA

Since January 7, 2023 our colleague and friend Mortaza Behboudi has been imprisoned in Afghanistan, in the Taliban prisons.

We do not forget him and call for his release.

Learn more about #FREEMORTAZA