The CGT evokes “carnage”, while the CFDT announces a “summary procedure” to “prevent any further transfer of stores”.
Thirty-nine Carrefour stores, in which nearly 4,300 employees work, could leave the group and become franchises or lease management in 2025, several union sources told AFP on Friday, with the CFDT announcing that it would contest the decision in court. The CGT mentioned a «carnage» regarding this new transfer of stores, including 15 hypermarkets, in line with previous years.
The transfer to franchise or lease management allows Carrefour to maintain its commercial market share while outsourcing certain costs, notably salaries, covered by independent franchised retailers. The distributor claims that this avoids closing stores, the unions denounce a “disguised restructuring plan”.
Among the largest stores affected by this new wave, those of Berck (Pas-de-Calais), Évreux (Eure), L’Isle-d’Abeau (Isère), Salaise-sur-Sanne (Isère), Étampes (Essonne ), Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), Montigny-les-Cormeilles (Val d’Oise), Orange (Vaucluse), Nice TNL (Alpes-Maritimes), Trans-en-Provence (Var), Perpignan-Roussillon (Pyrénées-Orientales), Saint-Jean-de-Vedas (Hérault), Fougères (Ille-et-Vilaine), Bourges (Cher), Dijon Toison d’Or (Côte Gold).
-“Prevent any further transfer of stores”
The CFDT union, which last March took the distributor to court over this policy, immediately announced on Friday “summon in the coming days Carrefour for summary proceedings”in order to“prevent any further transfer of stores”. Ce, “pending judgment in the proceedings on the merits”. As part of the latter, “the judge ordered mediation, the content of which is confidential and which ended on December 26 with a failure”Sylvain Macé, national secretary in charge of mass distribution at CFDT services, told AFP.
In recent years, Carrefour has increased the number of franchise and lease-managed stores. The number of stores likely to switch in 2025 is in line with previous years, after 37 stores including 16 hypermarkets in 2024, 41 stores including 16 hypermarkets in 2023, 43 stores including 16 hypermarkets in 2022, 47 stores including 10 hypermarkets in 2021 .
In total since the arrival of Alexandre Bompard at the head of the group, these are “344 stores (95 hypermarkets and 249 supermarkets) which were sold to buyers and more than 27,000 employees who left the workforce” of Carrefour, according to CFDT estimates. Carrefour management no longer provides information on the number of direct employees of the group in France.
