Huge acquisition of Casino stores, media omnipresence and even a football match with Emmanuel Macron: Breton Thierry Cotillard has presided over the destiny of the Mousquetaires/Intermarché for a little over a year. He has been leading ambitious projects since the huge Casino store buyout operation.
“The coach announces the lineup for the second half: in defense, Christian Karembeu, Laurent Blanc, Marcel Desailly, Thierry Cotillard!“The fifty-year-old, a supporter of EA Guingamp but more suited to rugby, has barely recovered from his emotions, a month after a match alongside these football legends, organized by the Variétés Club de France for the benefit of the Yellow Pieces .
The Musketeers are partners in the operation, which has earned their boss the opportunity to play with, in addition to world champions, the President of the Republic.
The group is a distribution giant, with a turnover of 53 billion euros with the Intermarché brand, the third largest network of food supermarkets in France behind E.Leclerc and Carrefour, but also the DIY specialists Bricomarché, Brico Cash and Bricorama.
150,000 people work there, led by just over 3,100 business leaders at the head of some 4,000 points of sale in France (3,226), Portugal, Belgium and Poland.
Like E.Leclerc and Coopérative U, Les Mousquetaires are in fact a group of independents, particularly in terms of social policy or in-store investments.
Even if, according to its leader, the group is “the most integrated independent” Or “everything happens in Tréville“, the name of the headquarters, located in Bondoufle (Essonne), it took a little persuasion to bring everyone into the buyout of nearly 300 Casino stores, the largest concentration operation in the sector in the 21st century.
The points of sale, some very tired, were acquired by the group and must then be bought by members. To date, “almost everyone has expressed interest, even if we can’t wait until the end of the year to be sure that everything will be sold“, explains Thierry Cotillard to AFP.
At the same time, this “impatient“claimed has engaged the group in a purchasing alliance of an unusually long duration – ten years – with its competitors Auchan and Casino, and anticipates the “construction site that awaits us” of Agromousquetaires, a food production sector of which certain branches could be subject to restructuring.
“This is very ambitious, especially for a group of independent bosses who are betting their own money“, observes a competitor on condition of anonymity, evoking “a real adventure“.”It has to work, otherwise the backlash can be extremely violent.“.
The grouping is customary for palace revolutions. It was also following an internal rebellion that the media leader, who had already chaired the food branch between 2015 and 2020, took over at the start of 2023.
His style contrasts radically with his predecessor Didier Duhaupand, as discreet as Thierry Cotillard is at ease in the light.
The native of Saint-Brieuc, owner of stores located in the chic western suburbs of Paris, claims to evolve “between two worlds”, “very happy“in his little Breton village like”to meet big bosses or chat with Bruno Le Maire“.
“I feed off that, I don’t want to be in a box“, he explains in the small, cluttered office of his store in Issy-les-Moulineaux, at the foot of the Coca-Cola France headquarters.
Everyone recognizes in him a real energy and the desire to bring people together, and he was a driving force in the arrival in March of E.Leclerc and the Mousquetaires within the FCD, the supermarket “lobby” which notably intends to have more influence at the level policy.
His charisma and communication skills can also be assets for a group generally perceived as tough in negotiations with suppliers, and rather less competitive on working conditions.
But the challenge is significant for the leader, elected for a term of four and a half years.
“He is intelligent, very intuitive and sensitive, and knows how to put the right allies in the right places to prevent opposition from emerging.“, observes a good connoisseur on condition of anonymity. But “the strategy adopted will have to pay off“.
