Carrefour management expected a hectic annual general meeting on Friday May 24 in Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis). Indeed, there were many current and controversial issues that could crystallize around the distribution group: Israeli-Palestinian conflict, anti-Olympic Games activists, social discontent around rental management, etc. The security services had also been muscular. The managers of the distribution group were right.
The tone is set in front of the entrance to the building, where trade unionists and activists of the Palestinian cause, partitioned within the same area, wave their banners to the sounds of the group Sidi Wacho and its song Bordeliko. Not enough, however, to disturb small holders like Jean-Paul, 76 years old, who came from the other side of Paris, to understand why this line of his stock savings plan is “always below its purchase price”even if he knows “that mass distribution is a sector with very low margins”.
In the room, where more than 150 CFDT and CGT activists took their seats, the atmosphere was also lively throughout the more than two hours of assembly. Tense, but without violence, halfway between a picket line and a football match. Under incessant booing (“thugs”, “liars”, “We are here”…), Alexandre Bompard, CEO for seven years, reminded shareholders that 2023 had been “a pivotal year for the group (…) in an economic context absolutely unprecedented for forty years due to the levels of inflation observed in Europe and Latin America”, two regions where Carrefour has strengthened its activities through acquisitions. All in one “very competitive environment”.
A form of disguised dismissal
It was also an opportunity for him to insist on the fact that the franchise constituted a “major axis” of its strategic plan, “a means of expansion” thanks to which he opened “1,000 new stores in the last four years in France” and established itself in “three new countries in 2023”. But also “a solution for stores in great difficulty”. “In 2023, more than half of our turnover in France was achieved through franchising”underlined Mr. Bompard, sometimes raising his voice to drown out the din, without appearing embarrassed.
Trade unionists spoke out on this subject, denouncing the social and financial malaise of employees. For the CFDT, the outsourcing of more than 300 stores and 23,000 employees through the sale to third parties, whether franchisees or tenant-managers, is a form of disguised dismissal. The union also took the distributor to court in March for “abusive practice of rental management and franchising”. Coincidentally, a first hearing to hand over the documents took place that same day, at the Evry court.
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