A new sign of the poor health of the mass distribution sector. According to several union sources, Carrefour, France’s number 1, is seeking to sell off 39 stores, including 15 hypermarkets, in which nearly 4,300 employees work, by converting them into franchises or lease management in the coming year.
This maneuver allows Carrefour, accustomed to this type of operation, to maintain its commercial market share while outsourcing certain costs, notably salaries, covered by independent franchised traders. The distributor claims that this avoids closing stores, but the unions denounce a “disguised restructuring plan”, because, in doing so, the group disengages. The CGT, for its part, evokes a «carnage».
The CFDT, which last March took the distributor to court over this policy, immediately announced this Friday, January 10 “submit Carrefour for summary proceedings in the coming days”, in order to“prevent any further transfer of stores”, “while awaiting the judgment in the procedure [sur le] fond». As part of the latter, “the judge ordered mediation, the content of which is confidential and which ended on December 26 with a finding of failure”, Sylvain Macé, national secretary in charge of mass distribution at the CFDT, told AFP. Friday noon, Carrefour reacted tit for tat in a press release sent to AFP. In this one, the group says they are doing “trust the summary judge not to call into question” his decision. “The CFDT has once again left the field of social dialogue to favor that of judicialization”, he also adds.
In line with previous years
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 .
Among the largest stores affected by this new wave, those of Berck (Pas-de-Calais), Evreux (Eure), L’Isle-d’Abeau (Isère), Salaise-sur-Sanne (Isère), Etampes (Essonne ), Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), Montigny-lès-Cormeilles (Val-d’Oise), Orange (Vaucluse), Nice TNL (Alpes-Maritimes), Trans-en-Provence (Var), Perpignan-Roussillon (Pyrénées-Orientales), Saint-Jean-de-Védas (Hérault), Fougères (Ille-et-Vilaine), Bourges (Cher), Dijon Toison d’Or (Côte-d’Or).
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.
