Only three days before Christmas and like all hypermarkets in the Pau area and around the world, the Auchan Pau shopping center expected to welcome more customers than all the other Saturdays of the year this December 21 in the morning. Things didn't really go as planned.
If the new demonstration by the group's employees was well planned and they were well positioned at the east entrance of the store, blocking the parking lots with tons of slurry and agricultural tires was not on the menu of the festivities. The farmers, who had still not claimed responsibility for the action at midday, mobilized in the middle of the night to dump the bulky waste around 5 a.m.
Carts and parking lots were sprayed with slurry before cleaning companies took action in the morning.
Quentin Top
The employees saw the team arrive from the road to Tarbes and block access to the large parking lot of the shopping center one by one. Piles of slurry, manure, tires and other branches have closed off the various ramps which serve the large car park. The few remaining cars are good for a roller.
No claim
“I manage emergencies, it’s first about securing access and customers,” said director Marianne Geffrottin at 11 a.m., while several cleaning companies were operating in the parking lot. The eastern access from the Tarbes road was freed up to accommodate part of the customer base. The rest of the parking lot was to be made accessible during the day.
Quentin Top
Customers were able to enter the store without holding their noses due to the very strong smell that permeated the shopping center.
“It's the biggest Saturday of the year, everything is ready in the store,” lamented the manager of the hypermarket to our colleagues in the Republic of the Pyrenees, a little earlier in the morning. “We understand their problems, we have a lot of empathy for them but this is a big blow for the teams. And also the gallery traders or those who run the chalets and who are small independents”.
Quentin Top
Lots of clearing work on this Saturday morning before Christmas.
No agricultural union seemed to claim this act. “It’s not the FSEA, I wasn’t aware of it and we haven’t declared any demonstrations,” emphasized Corinne Nousty, president of the FDSEA 64. “We did our action not long ago and it was declared, . It’s an expression of farmers being fed up, working at a loss and always being the scapegoat.”
Neither Rural Coordination 64 nor the peasant confederation responded to our requests. On February 1, the Young Farmers dumped tires in front of Auchan and the Leclerc Pau university.
Internal social conflict
Installed in front of the entrance to the store, the FO and CGT unionists from Auchan once again showed their incomprehension this Saturday morning in the face of the job reduction plan which targets the Famille Mulliez group. “A plan to eliminate 2,400 jobs while the group distributes 1 billion euros in dividends,” indicated a trade unionist to a customer who picked up his leaflet. “In Pau, 11 jobs have been eliminated, including 8 in household appliances. There will always be equipment for sale but no more salesman to advise.”
