Municipal Postal Agencies and Retail Post Offices are local services, to which Mayors are attached to ensure the vitality and attractiveness of our villages.
We clearly tell the Minister that the State cannot undermine the contracts it has signed with us, the Mayors, and local traders, in terms of postal presence.
If the hunt for budgetary savings is sometimes justified, we warn, in the letter addressed to the Minister, against any desire to reduce the already battered size of rural public services.
We inform the Deputies and Senators so that they are vigilant when voting on the 2025 budget.
JF FARENC, Mayor of Blanot
President of the Association of Rural Mayors 71
Marc LABULLE, Mayor of Cheilly-les-Maranges,
Madam Minister,
During the congress of the Association of Rural Mayors of France in Saint-Julien, in Côte d’Or, Philippe Wahl, CEO of the La Poste group, announced that a reduction of 50 million euros was envisaged by Bercy on the territorial equalization fund provided for in the postal presence contract from this year 2024, with a similar cut in 2025. This contract, signed in February 2023 between La Poste, the State and the Association of Mayors of France for the period 2023-2025 , aims to maintain a network of 17,000 contact points (post offices, municipal agencies and merchant relays) across the territory. Initially funded to the tune of 174 million euros per year, this essential system ensures that 97% of French people are within 5 km or less than 20 minutes of one of these points.
If this restrictive measure were to be confirmed, it would be a serious marker of the progressive disengagement of the State in financing the postal presence in rural areas.
The territorial postal presence contract is an important tool through its territorial planning component which made it possible, as post offices disappeared, to maintain the “postal” network as we currently know it (17,000 points ). It is in this context that elected officials were able to do their part by installing a municipal postal agency in their municipality, or by supporting the establishment of a Post Office with the help of a local trader. This service offering in “partnership” with La Poste represents a significant operating cost, which is partly offset by the monthly flat-rate compensation paid to municipalities and merchants involved in this system. Without this compensation included in the postal presence contract, many points of contact would be sacrificed to the detriment of residents of rural areas, because many municipalities would not be able to assume the financial burden alone.
Our department of Saône et Loire, the 6th largest in France in terms of its surface area, and given its predominance in rural areas, has 230 contact points, which are divided into 65 post offices, 119 municipal postal agencies and 45 post offices.
Municipal postal agencies and post offices represent 71% of the contact points in our territory and would be directly impacted by the planned budget cuts. The risk is to see many partner points heading towards outright closure due to lack of resources.
Finally, it is worrying to realize that the financial commitments of the State provided for by contract would not be respected in an area as sensitive as that of access to local services offered to citizens, particularly in rural areas.
We ask you, Madam Minister, to intervene so that this territorial equalization fund is sustained in its entirety. Rural residents cannot once again be “the front-line victims” of the budgetary restrictions desired by Bercy.
Please accept, Madam Minister, the expression of our consideration.
Marc LABULLE Jean-François FARENC
Mayor of Cheilly-les-Maranges Mayor of Blanot
President of the Commission President of AMR 71
Departmental Postal Presence
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