(Updated with call for a boycott from the head of Ukrainian diplomacy)
PARIS, March 26 (Reuters) – The retail chain Auchan plans to maintain its activities in Russia and Ukraine, said the CEO of Auchan Retail International, Yves Claude, in an interview published in the Journal du Dimanche.
“The most important thing for us is to preserve our employees and to ensure our primary mission which is to continue to feed the populations in these two countries”, he declares. “Leaving would be imaginable economically but not from a human point of view.”
In response to these statements, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister called for a boycott of Auchan stores and all their products.
“Apparently the job losses in Russia are greater than the loss of life in Ukraine,” Dmitro Kuleba wrote on Twitter.
In the JDD, Yves Claude explains the choice to stay in Russia out of a concern “to help our collaborators and the civilian populations.”
“If Auchan leaves, we will deprive 30,000 people of employment. 40% of them are employees and shareholders. Not to mention the impact on their families, which this decision would weaken. And our customers urge us to stay”, he explains.
Owned by the Mulliez family, Auchan operates 40 supermarkets and has around 6,000 employees in Ukraine. According to Yves Claude, the group has 231 stores and e-commerce activities in Russia.
“If we leave, we risk expropriation and we expose our local leaders to criminal prosecution for fraudulent bankruptcy. And if we entrust our assets to a third party, another option offered, it means that they will be taken over by Russian capital This will not bring peace and will on the contrary be counterproductive by strengthening the Russian economic and financial ecosystem”, explains Yves Claude.
Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenskiy considers it necessary for all Western companies to leave the Russian market, as he notably made known to the French Parliament on Wednesday. nL5N2VQ4L2
“Renault, Auchan, Leroy Merlin must stop being sponsors of Russia’s war machine, stop financing the murder of children and women, rapes. Everyone must remember that values are worth more than profits,” he said.
(Report Elizabeth Pineau and Mimosa Spencer)