When my schoolmates and I were sixthformers in the late '50s at a boarding school in central Manchester, we eagerly offered ourselves to post the school’s mail in time for the last collection at 9 p.m.
This mission was popular because one could grab a pint and buy hot meat and potato pies from the stalls in Piccadilly Gardens. Most interestingly of all we could eye up the “tarts” who solicited at the back of the post office. None of us had the wickedness to take up their come-ons -- although of course this new world of sin and wickedness locked us in its grip.
Today, 50 odd years on and 1200 kilometres further south, groups of lycéens (sixthformers) are, according to La Dépêche, travelling from Montpellier at weekends for sex in the bordels of La Jonquera.
Sixthformers are not, of course, the only customers at the bordels of La Jonquera. Men from all over the Languedoc-Roussillon, and from much further afield -- even from as far away 750 kilometres to the north in Nancy -- make the return journey. Le Paradise, having opened as recently as 21 October, is already (according to its manager Nico) welcoming up to 600 clients a night until four in the morning (five on weekends).
Why La Jonquera? Quite simply it is a boom frontier town built on low-duty Spanish goods, where brothels have been legal, as they have throughout Spanish Catalonia, for the last eight years. The size of the town doubled in the '90s. Whereas once La Jonquera was a little village with ochre coloured houses, it has become a vast commercial zone. A recent count revealed 16 supermarkets, 400 stores, 46 restaurants and 16 service stations.
Spain, La Jonquera : Paradise night club, the largest brothel in Europe, prepares to open its doors on 21 October 2010 in Jonquera, in north-eastern Spain near the French border
And, of course, there are the brothels. Although they have been illegal in France since the passing of the Marthe Richard law in 1946, they were legalised by the
Generalitat, or regional government of Spanish Catalonia, in 2002. Legal, that is, as long as those who run them take no direct cut from the women who sell their bodies; pimping remains illegal.
“We are in the relentless grip of market forces,” writes Alain Tarrius, Professor of Sociology at Toulouse’s Mirail University. Hypermarket sex at La Jonquera, he argues, is an inevitable and totally logical consequence of the laws of supply and demand in our globalised consumer society. If we can buy cheap alcohol, cigarettes, fuel and tyres in La Jonquera, why not sex also?
A peep inside Le Paradise
The owner of Le Paradise, Jesús Moreno, makes his money by renting out his 80 rooms to young women at EUR 70 per room per day, use of gym and food included. Moreno is happy to show visitors the identical rooms where sex is “consumed” (sic) by clients.
There is a bidet on the right as you enter, and at the far end is a bed covered with a black bedspread. Above it is a mauve neon light. “Almost like being in a hearse” according to one journalist, Jean-Marie Lebraud. Incidentally, Jesús Moreno is no novice in this business. As well as shelling out EUR 3 million for Le Paradise he has already created two other brothels not far away.
The owner of Le Paradise, Jesús Moreno
Where does Moreno’s money come from? Although the police suspect him of money laundering and human trafficking, they have so far not been able to nail him (two Brazilian women are currently giving evidence in a case against him for trafficking).
Moreno is adamant that his business is all above board. He takes no money from the prostitutes other than the rent of a room -- though the room's use itself could be considered as living off immoral earnings. The women charge what they like and he takes no percentage from their incomes. And since she might entertain four to six men a day, her weekly income is infinitely higher than anything she can earn in her country of origin.
Personal safety and safe sex are definitely the watchwords of Le Paradise. After being discreetly vetted by security guards with concealed truncheons, each client buys an obligatory drink (alcoholic EUR 12, soft EUR 10) and has to pay five euro for a disposable sheet, condom, lubricant and towel. The women must take compulsatory tests every month.
Negotiations take place in the two salles de spectacles that can together accommodate 500 people. Choose your woman from all those variously clad or unclad. Rugbymen apparently might be greeted by explicit pelvic gestures, whilst older men might be greeted with a softer touch. There are 11 private suites with jacuzzis reserved for club members who pay an annual membership fee of EUR 500.
Trafficking
In his recent book, International migration and new criminal networks, Alain Tarrius investigates the sources of the traffic in prostitutes.
The trafficking is the result of globalisation, he writes. Everything, according to Tarrius, begins in Afghanistan: During the poppy harvest some 65,000 Afghans converge onto the ports of Samson and Trebizond in Turkey or Poti in Georgia.
The Turkish or Italian mafia get hold of the drugs in the ports of the Black Sea. The money from this traffic, worth some 6.5 billion euros, is used to buy the oldest traffic of all, namely young women.
According to national French radio station 'France Info,' some 200 women await would-be clients in an enormous complex some 50 kms (31 miles) from the south-western French town of Perpignan
Women are recruited from countries in the Balkan Peninsula with [forged] Romanian passports enabling them to move around more freely in Europe. Another source, Le Nid, alleges that women from Eastern Europe and South America are also trafficked.
These young women, says Tarrius, are sent to southern Italy for a month to “learn their future trade” of prostitution. After this, they are sent to work in the Spanish clubs:
A number of these women are put up for auction and sold to residents in Catalonia. The prostitutes must first of all pay back huge sums – 70,000 euros each – before they are set free.
Mayor woes
The worst headache of all for Mayor of La Jonquera Jordi Cabezas must be the prostitutes operating uncontrolled in La Jonquera’s huge HGV parks. One of these desperate women was recently killed by an HGV vehicle while trying to dodge the police.
Cabezas, whilst acknowledging that the sex supermarkets bring money to the town, he certainly doesn’t “rejoice” in this extra income. Having battled in vain for a long time to prevent planning permission for Le Paradise he has thrown in the towel, saying he was forced to give construction permits following a judicial decision by Catalonia’s high court.
Monsieur Cabezas is on a hiding to nothing if he hopes to put a stop to all this. Unless, that is, the wrath of God comes to his aid and destroys this latter-day Sodom and Gomorrah, Just as in biblical times, with brimstone and fire.
References:
- Alain Tarrius: “Migrants internationaux et nouveaux réseaux criminels” (Editions Trabucaire, June 2010)
- Le Journal du Dimanche (17/04/2010)
- La Dépêche, 24 October, 11 November
- L’Indépendant, various editions
© 2010 Basil Howitt
Health & Fitness
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Basil Howitt reports on the recent opening of Le Paradise. Situated in the Spanish border town of La Jonquera, it is Europe’s largest brothel, with 80 rooms and up to 200 prostitutes. At weekends, the clients are overwhelmingly Frenchmen.
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