A decision which is a continuation of the strategy implemented in recent years by Carrefour. The distributor announced this Friday to its union organizations that it plans to transition 39 stores, including 15 hypermarkets, to franchise and rental management in 2025. The CFDT responded in a press release, declaring that it had “decided to assign in the coming days Carrefour in summary proceedings”, with the aim of “preventing any further transfer of stores”. The distributor reacted, saying it “trusted the summary judge not to call into question” the transition of its stores to franchise or lease management.
Since 2017, “344 stores (95 hypermarkets and 249 supermarkets) have been sold to buyers and more than 27,000 employees have left the workforce” of Carrefour, according to CFDT estimates. This year, the union is talking about 4,300 employees – who lose all or part of their social benefits after a transition period by joining smaller legal entities. Concerning the performance of stores converted to franchise and rental management, “the feedback we can get is that the store is neither better nor worse, but that the workforce is down on average by 10%”, assured Sylvain Macé, national secretary in charge of mass distribution at CFDT services.
“Restoring performance”
For its part, the group’s management ensures that “since 2018, rental management has proven its ability to turn around the performance of stores that are heavily loss-making” and that no Carrefour hypermarket has closed since that date. “In 2025, we will continue the pace of transition to rental management of stores that we are unable to turn around in an integrated management mode,” adds Carrefour.
Leasing management is a particular form of franchise store operation, in which the franchisor, in this case Carrefour, remains the owner of the business. This mode of operating stores, like franchising, allows the distributor to maintain its commercial market share while avoiding bearing certain operating costs. This policy also allows Carrefour to remove stores whose financial health is sometimes fragile from its accounts. But the CFDT, which has already taken the distributor to court in March 2024, sees it as a “disguised restructuring plan”.
With that of this Friday, these are not the only legal actions targeting the distributor and its use of the franchise. Franchisees, generally from smaller format stores, also took him to the Rennes court and received support from the Ministry of the Economy. In 2023, with the transition to rental management of several stores, union demonstrations were numerous.
