Postal services in the territories will suffer a cut of 50 million euros

The public service mission of La Poste will be reduced. The territorial postal presence contract, which finances the 17,000 antennas in France, must be reduced by 50 million euros this year, the CEO of the La Poste group announced on Friday September 27.

“There is this budget cut of 50 million euros out of 160 million which was decided and [dont] we will discuss with the State”declared Philippe Wahl, on the sidelines of the congress of the Association of Rural Mayors of France in Saint-Julien (Côte-d’Or), during which he was questioned by an elected official. “If this cut is made in 2024, it undoubtedly announces a cut in 2025, which means that we will no longer be able to operate municipal postal agencies”he added.

Signed by La Poste, the Association of Mayors of France (AMF) and the State for the period 2023-2025, this territorial postal presence contract, initially accompanied by credits of 177 million euros per year, compensates for the losses financial linked to the presence of 17,000 « points de contact » postal services (post offices, municipal and intermunicipal agencies, France Services, etc.) throughout the territory.

A service managed “under the prism of profit”

Thanks to this network, more than 97% of the population is located less than 5 kilometers or less than 20 minutes from a « point de contact » postal. But the cost of La Poste’s land-use planning mission is growing faster than the resources allocated to finance it.

“In rural municipalities, there are a lot of municipal postal agencies where La Poste pays part of the municipal employee’s salary, so it’s a real tragedy for the future of these points of contact”underlined Philippe Wahl.

According to the AMF, since the signing of the first postal presence contract in 2008, “more than 2.4 billion euros have been invested in the regions to adapt and modernize the postal presence and support the most vulnerable customers”. benefit from it “as a priority (…) rural areas, mountain areas, priority districts of urban policy and overseas territories ».

“The CGT protests against this announcement which clearly goes against the interests of the population and postal workers whose jobs are threatened”reacted the union in a press release, calling “to make 1^is October a great day of mobilization for public service ».

“Whether on the side of the management of La Poste or the State (which remains one of the two shareholders of the group [avec la Caisse des dépôts]), public service missions are exclusively taken through the prism of profits”denounced for its part Sud-PTT. The union asked in a statement “a broad debate on the future of the public postal service, in all its components, banking, communication, sending of mail or parcels, territorial presence”.