Appointed in April as head of Auchan, Guillaume Darrasse's mission is to turn around a brand in difficulty. The group announced this Tuesday a vast social plan providing for 2,389 job cuts.
A large-scale social plan. Left behind by the competition, Auchan announced on Tuesday the elimination of 2,389 jobs in France within its headquarters and in stores. At the same time, management plans to create 114 positions in “drive” activities and 205 within support functions.
“It’s not a degrowth project that we want to manage, lowering costs is a means, not an end,” assured the distributor’s boss Guillaume Darrasse.
It was to the latter, appointed in April, that the mission of turning around Auchan, the 5th player in the market, which had been in difficulty for several years, was entrusted.
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Adapting Auchan’s “historical format”
As soon as he arrived at the head of the distributor, the sixty-year-old manager presented a “transformation plan” aimed at “generating the means to get back into the price match,” he explained to LSA. In this niche, Auchan, built on an integrated model, suffers from competition from Leclerc, Intermarché or Coopérative U, more competitive on the shelf thanks to a model based on groupings of independent companies.
Beyond the drop in prices, Guillaume Darrasse also announced his intention to adapt Auchan's “historic format”, namely the hypermarket, less popular today, by reducing the surface area. At the time, the impact on employment had not been announced, but the unions were already suspicious: “We have the impression that he is there to do the 'dirty work', we are not spoken to only savings and never a commercial project We are in a vicious circle” with employees “who do not have the means to do their work properly”, explained to AFP Franck Martinaud, FO union representative at Auchan Retail. France.
“Dinosaur of mass distribution”
If Guillaume Durrasse was chosen to join the Mulliez galaxy brand, it is mainly because of his experience, he who worked for the food wholesaler Pomona, at Leclerc, Système U but also at Teract, a subsidiary of Invivo , when the company was considering a merger with Casino.
“He is one of the dinosaurs of mass distribution,” a source told BFM Business in April. Another described the manager as “a hard worker” and “a leader of men” who “knows his stores well”.
He is also known for his outspokenness: “For the first time in fifteen years, Auchan is led by someone who is not in denial of 'Everything is fine', and wants to give power back to the stores, that's is salutary”, greeted Philippe Goetzmann, expert in mass distribution, in Le Parisien.
The fact remains that the scale of the social plan to turn around Auchan legitimately leaves employees in shock: “If the figures circulating are confirmed, it is the biggest social plan we have ever known at Auchan”, launched Christophe Delay , FO national delegate in the parking lot in front of the hotel, before the start of the meeting. “It’s catastrophic. It’s going to leave many, many employees and families in difficulty. It’s shocking, scandalous,” said Franck Martineau, FO Auchan Retail union representative, after learning the precise figure of job cuts. The CFDT delegate of the Auchan-France group, Gilles Martin, warns management: “The company will have to make very significant efforts to support its employees.”
