Auchan announces a draft social plan, nearly 2,400 jobs at risk in France

The distributor Auchan, long the flagship of the Mulliez galaxy, presented, on Tuesday November 5, to representatives of its employees in France, a draft large-scale layoff plan, with 2,389 job cuts, Agence France learned. Press to management.

In detail, Auchan, which employs around 54,000 people in France, plans to cut 784 positions within its headquarters and 915 positions in its stores. It provides for the cessation of direct home delivery activity which would result in 224 job cuts. Around ten unprofitable points of sale are expected to close (466 positions eliminated), including three hypermarkets in Clermont-Ferrand (Puy-de-Dôme), Woippy (Moselle) and Bar-le-Duc (Meuse), and in a supermarket, in Aurillac (Cantal).

As of Monday, as the figure began to circulate, the “retail” union delegate for Force Ouvrière (FO), Franck Martinaud, expressed alarm to the AFP: “We have already had numerous PES [plans de sauvegarde de l’emploi], but none exceeded 1,000 posts. If it's that number, it's huge. » “I know that we are not in an easy economic period, but to have figures like that…”also reacted Monday Fabien Alliata, CFDT central services union delegate.

Several cumulative disabilities

On Sunday, the specialist in the mass distribution sector Olivier Dauvers explained in particular that “the difficulties” from Auchan in France “have for years been covered by international activities”. But since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the distributor's very profitable Russian branch no longer plays this role and press reports have mentioned the sale of this Russian subsidiary in recent days.

Since the collapse of the Saint-Etienne Casino group, where a PSE is also underway and could affect more than 3,000 jobs, Auchan is regularly cited as the worst-off in large-scale food distribution. The group has several handicaps in France, even if it has financially solid shareholders, in the person of the Mulliez Family Association (AFM), also the owner of the lucrative Leroy Merlin and Decathlon.

First, Auchan's market share – at 9.1% at the last count, far behind E.Leclerc (24.1%), Carrefour (21.4%), Mousquetaires-Intermarché (17.4%) and Cooperative U (12.2%) – leaves it less room for maneuver in its negotiations with agro-industrial suppliers. To carry more weight, Auchan joined forces with its competitor Intermarché to buy together in an alliance lasting an unusually long ten years.

In addition, the group, which owns its stores, with very few franchises, suffers from competition from E.Leclerc, Intermarché and Coopérative U. These groupings of independent companies reduce operating costs as much as possible, and conditions social services are generally less valuable there. This generally allows these stores to sell their products at more competitive prices.

Another weak point for Auchan: the group has historically relied on the format of hypermarkets, the largest stores, but this is less popular today. Over the first six months of 2024, its holding company Elo suffered a net loss of almost 1 billion euros. Last year, it suffered a net loss of 379 million euros with declining sales, while inflation had boosted the sales of most of its major retail competitors.