“Despite and sadness for the affected families”for Gilles Martin, central union delegate of the CFDT of Auchan France. “Disgust, anger, surprise at the scale of the announcements”, for Franck Martinaud, Force Ouvrière delegate of Auchan Retail France, who expected workforce reductions, “but not to that extent”. Staff representatives were in shock on Tuesday, November 5, when the management of France's fifth major retail player announced to them the outlines of the biggest social plan in its history. Closure of stores and warehouses, reorganization of hypermarkets, merger of support services… The new strategic plan to return to profitability for Auchan, which employs 54,000 employees in France, will result in the elimination of 2,389 positions. That is 1,751 net reductions, including the creation of 638 positions.
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“It was a bit written in advance”jokes a competing distributor in view of the weak points of the northern group: “A hypermarket model in decline, source of high costs, and an important place in Russia, an extremely profitable market. » This balance had made it possible for years to absorb the losses of the activity in France. But with the sale of its activities in Russia underway, it became urgent for the Mulliez family's food brand to tackle the recovery of its French activities, so as not to suffer the same fate as its competitor Casino. Because Auchan, present in 12 countries, has continued to lose market share in France, going from 11.3% to 9.1% (including the acquired Casino stores) in ten years, when E.Leclerc was climbing by 19.9% to 24.1%.
Year after year, the accounts fell deeper into the red. In the first half, the fall in turnover reached 4.7% in France (after a decline of 2.7% in 2023), and 3.3% across the group as a whole (excluding countries at war) . At the end of July, the company justified these figures by competition “better positioned in terms of price and formats” and by a “deconsumption phenomenon” which affects more “hypermarkets (–5.2%), more exposed to non-food products” what “supermarkets (– 1.6%)”. Results which led to a loss of almost 1 billion euros for its parent company ELO. “For fifteen years, Auchan has only made bad choicessummarizes Christophe Foucaut, CGT union delegate at the Englos hypermarket (North). We have had 20 directors in twenty-two years, who did not even have time to deploy their strategy. Each time we hope and each time the company goes worse and worse. »
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