The distributor Casino, which changed hands at the end of March, plans to reduce its workforce by 1,300 to 3,200 jobs but confirms its roots in Saint-Etienne (AFP / Damien MEYER)
A wide range while waiting to know the number of stores and warehouses which can still be taken over by September: the French distributor Casino, which changed hands at the end of March, plans to reduce its workforce by 1,300 to 3,200 positions, but confirms its roots in Saint-Etienne (center-east).
The “reorganization project”, presented on Wednesday to staff representatives, “provides for 1,293 net job cuts within the group’s head office functions, including 554 in Saint-Étienne”, in the Loire department, indicated Casino management. in a press release.
The group’s historic headquarters would retain in Saint-Étienne “1,010 positions out of 1,564 currently”, specified Casino, which also has headquarters in the Paris region – in Vitry-sur-Seine (Franprix brand) and Clichy (Monoprix) – and in the southwest, in Bordeaux (CDiscount). The latter headquarters is not affected by the plans presented on Wednesday, Casino reported to AFP.
Concretely, the social and economic committees (CSE) of companies concerned by employment protection plans (PSE) were summoned to a meeting scheduled for May 6 to launch “an information-consultation procedure prior to the implementation implementation of a PES project”, detailed the distributor.
The group’s inter-union association (CGT, CFDT, Unsa, CFE-CGC) said on Wednesday that it expected “tough negotiations even if” the new general director of the company, Philippe Palazzi, inducted at the end of March by the new shareholders taken by the Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, “undertook” to “pay supra-legal compensation”.
“The range of positions for which the elimination is announced within the group is very wide and also seems optimistic to us,” responded Casino union representatives, who fear “between 3,500 and 4,000 departures” within the group, subsidiaries included.
In a message sent to AFP on Wednesday evening, management “firmly” reaffirmed that the number of positions affected by the PES will “under no circumstances” exceed the figures it announced.
The number of positions retained at the gigantic headquarters of Saint-Étienne was the subject of much attention.
The mayor (ex-LR) Gaël Perdriau, also president of the Saint-Etienne metropolis, reacted on Wednesday by highlighting a “significant number of job cuts”. He wants to meet “soon again with the management team in place to consolidate the group’s presence in Saint-Étienne”.
Georges Ziegler, LR president of the Loire department, is “in favor of trusting Philippe Palazzi”. “The price to pay is heavy in terms of jobs. Let’s hope that this will allow this brand to become attractive again and to play again in the 1st division in large local distribution,” he told AFP.
– Succession of transfers –
Casino’s debt incurred by the previous management had pushed it to multiply disposals, including by selling in 2023 almost all of its large format stores, supermarkets and hypermarkets, to its competitors Intermarché, Auchan and Carrefour. An activity which nevertheless constituted the historic heart of Casino.
Philippe Palazzi, July 27, 2023 in Paris (AFP / JOEL SAGET)
The group, which today brings together brands well known to the French, such as Monoprix and Franprix, almost no longer has an international presence, even though it still employed 200,000 people worldwide and 50,000 in France at the end of 2022.
After the sale of large formats and before the planned PSE, the distributor only employs 28,212 people.
The group published its turnover for the first quarter on Wednesday evening: 2.1 billion euros, half of which via Monoprix. A first quarter at the end of which Casino ceased to be controlled by Jean-Charles Naouri.
The company still owns 27 large format supermarkets, according to union sources, as well as logistics bases, which have not found a buyer.
“The search for buyers for these different sites will continue actively during the information-consultation process,” Casino indicated. Failing this, the group is considering their closure, which would result in “the elimination of a maximum of 1,974 positions”.
A Casino supermarket, June 12, 2023 in Laventie, in Pas-de-Calais (AFP / DENIS CHARLET)
Within the logistics subsidiary Easydis alone, 740 positions and four warehouses (in Besançon, Toulon, Limoges and Gaël, in Ille-et-Vilaine) are threatened, out of a total of 2,140 jobs.
Among employees in the Paris region, “many risk refusing” a transfer to Saint-Étienne, estimated Estelle Silbermann, CFDT delegate.
Quoted in the group’s press release, Mr. Palazzi considers that “this transformation project would constitute a key step” to “put Casino on a new development trajectory”.
He plans to “reinvest in points of sale and rehumanize them”.
The group also formalized on Wednesday a purchasing alliance with its competitors Intermarché and Auchan, for an unusually long period of ten years.