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Spaniards stranded in fake German job scandal

A group of Spanish jobseekers has been left to fend for themselves in a town in central Germany after a company that promised them training, language courses and accommodation failed to deliver.

Published: 11 October 2013 07:20 CEST
Spaniards stranded in fake German job scandal
Photo: DPA

Some of the 128 Spaniards who signed up for the promising deal have been waiting in vain in the city of Erfurt in the region of Thuringia for over a month now.

German intermediary company Sphinx Consulting recruited them in their Madrid offices, assuring them they would be able to begin their work training in Germany as soon as they landed.

But upon their arrival they were faced with a dire situation.

Their work contracts had not been finalized, their accommodation was run down and there was no sign of the German classes starting anytime soon.

“It’s not that we’re dying of hunger,” 20-year-old Sara told Spanish newspaper El País. “They just haven’t kept a single one of their promises.”

Many of the budding employees have moved out of the dingy halls of residence they were placed in and into cleaner, more spacious accommodation.

None of them have been reimbursed yet for the flight or money they had to pay in advance for the German classes, both sums that should have been covered by the EU-funded scheme.

There is no sign of them being paid the €818 monthly salary they were promised either.

Kerstin Schmidt, the person in charge of the German branch of Sphinx Consulting SL, denies any wrongdoing.

She told El País she hadn’t been negligent and claimed that the Spanish jobseekers “had been given false expectations”.

Schmidt, who received a commission for every job contract awarded, claimed that for those people who didn’t have work it “was because they hadn’t stuck to the accommodation and training they had originally been assigned”.

On Wednesday, representatives of the Thüringen Chamber of Commerce and local unions met in what newspaper the Thüringer Allgemeine called a crisis summit.

The plan is to find jobs or apprenticeships for the 90 young Spaniards left stranded by Sphinx Consulting SL, a company which may soon be embroiled in legal action against them.

“We have to help these young people as quickly as possible,” said Matthias Machnig, Thüringen’s economy minister.

“Some of them are only 18-years-olds and this is their first time in Germany.

“We have a moral duty,” said Machnig.

“We are in constant contact with the people (Spaniards) and also with employers,” said Andreas Knuhr with the regional development body the Welcome Centre, the Thüringer Allgemeine reported.

Around 80 of the Spaniards could find work in the hospitality industry said another local union representative.

The move comes after a Thüringer Allgemeine report on Tuesday on the plight of the young Spaniards.

The latest from Spanish news agency EFE is that 37 of the affected have signed up for internships.

READ MORE: Thousands from US and UK on German benefits

Alex Dunham

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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Le Havre rules: How to talk about French towns beginning with Le, La or Les

If you're into car racing, French politics or visits to seaside resorts you are likely at some point to need to talk about French towns with a 'Le' in the title. But how you talk about these places involves a slightly unexpected French grammar rule. Here's how it works.

Published: 30 November 2021 13:04 CET
Updated: 4 December 2021 17:47 CET
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre.
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre. It can be difficult to know what prepositions to use for places like this - so we have explained it for you. (Photo by AFP)

If you’re listening to French chat about any of those topics, at some point you’re likely to hear the names of Mans, Havre and Touquet bandied about.

And this is because French towns that have a ‘Le’ ‘La’ or ‘Les’ in the title lose them when you begin constructing sentences. 

As a general rule, French town, commune and city names do not carry a gender. 

So if you wanted to describe Paris as beautiful, you could write: Paris est belle or Paris est beau. It doesn’t matter what adjectival agreement you use. 

For most towns and cities, you would use à to evoke movement to the place or explain that you are already there, and de to explain that you come from/are coming from that location:

Je vais à Marseille – I am going to Marseille

Je suis à Marseille – I am in Marseille 

Je viens de Marseille – I come from Marseille 

But a select few settlements in France do carry a ‘Le’, a ‘La’ or a ‘Les’ as part of their name. 

In this case the preposition disappears when you begin formulating most sentences, and you structure the sentence as you would any other phrase with a ‘le’, ‘la’ or ‘les’ in it.

Masculine

Le is the most common preposition for two names (probably something to do with the patriarchy) with Le Havre, La Mans, Le Touquet and the town of Le Tampon on the French overseas territory of La Réunion (more on that later)

A good example of this is Le Havre, a city in northern France where former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, who is tipped to one day run for the French presidency, serves as mayor. 

Edouard Philippe’s twitter profile describes him as the ‘Maire du Havre’, using a masculine preposition

Here we can see that his location is Le Havre, and his Twitter handle is Philippe_LH (for Le Havre) but when he comes to describe his job the Le disappears.

Because Le Havre is masculine, he describes himself as the Maire du Havre rather than the Maire de Havre (Anne Hidalgo, for example would describe herself as the Maire de Paris). 

For place names with ‘Le’ in front of them, you should use prepositions like this:

Ja vais au Touquet – I am going to Le Touquet

Je suis au Touquet – I am in Le Touquet 

Je viens du Touquet – I am from Le Touquet 

Je parle du Touquet – I am talking about Le Touquet

Le Traité du Touquet – the Le Touquet Treaty

Feminine

Some towns carry ‘La’ as part of their name. La Rochelle, the scenic town on the west coast of France known for its great seafood and rugby team, is one such example.

In French ‘à la‘ or ‘de la‘ is allowed, while ‘à le‘ becomes au and ‘de le’ becomes du. So for ‘feminine’ towns such as this, you should use the following prepositions:

Je vais à La Rochelle – I am going to La Rochelle

Je viens de La Rochelle – I am coming from La Rochelle 

Plural

And some places have ‘Les’ in front of their name, like Les Lilas, a commune in the suburbs of Paris. The name of this commune literally translates as ‘The Lilacs’ and was made famous by Serge Gainsbourg’s song Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, about a ticket puncher at the Metro station there. 

When talking about a place with ‘Les’ as part of the name, you must use a plural preposition like so:

Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas – I am the ticket puncher of Lilas 

Je vais aux Lilas – I am going to Les Lilas

Il est né aux Lilas – He was born in Les Lilas  

Islands 

Islands follow more complicated rules. 

If you are talking about going to one island in particular, you would use à or en. This has nothing to do with gender and is entirely randomised. For example:

Je vais à La Réunion – I am going to La Réunion 

Je vais en Corse – I am going to Corsica 

Generally speaking, when talking about one of the en islands, you would use the following structure to suggest movement from the place: 

Je viens de Corse – I am coming from Corsica 

For the à Islands, you would say:

Je viens de La Réunion – I am coming from La Réunion 

When talking about territories composed of multiple islands, you should use aux.

Je vais aux Maldives – I am going to the Maldives. 

No preposition needed 

There are some phrases in French which don’t require any a preposition at all. This doesn’t change when dealing with ‘Le’ places, such as Le Mans – which is famous for its car-racing track and Motorcycle Grand Prix. Phrases that don’t need a preposition include: 

Je visite Le Mans – I am visiting Le Mans

J’aime Le Mans – I like Le Mans

But for a preposition phrase, the town becomes simply Mans, as in Je vais au Mans.

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