The blow is hard for the employees of Office Depot France. The Lille commercial court ruled on Tuesday the liquidation of the company, completing its disappearance after its partial takeover by the Alkor cooperative, which has maintained some 500 jobs out of 1,500.
“Even if we expected it, we are disappointed. It is a company with more than 50 years of history and which finds itself wiped off the map in 15 minutes, ”responded Sébastien Fournier, secretary of the central CSE and Unsa delegate.
“A huge mess”
Already in July, the North Court of Appeal ruled “inadmissible” the appeal filed by the central CSE of the specialist in office supplies and two staff representatives, which challenged the takeover by Alkor decided by the Lille commercial court in nullity for “excess of power”. Alkor had undertaken to take over 50 stores and 460 employees out of 1,483 within the “retail” branch and to offer 370 additional positions via a job exchange with priority hiring over two years. By July, 963 Office Depot employees had received a layoff notification.
“It’s the end of an adventure. The box was folded in four months, ”responded an employee who was maintained and who requested anonymity. He evokes “the feeling of a huge mess with 1,000 people left behind”, “most of whom had real know-how in France”. The former employees denounce the responsibility of the much criticized German investment fund Aurelius, which had bought Office Depot France in January 2017, and its “calamitous” management having “sabotaged the cash flow” of the company.
A new legal action from January 2022
“We alerted the government in 2019, which has never acted,” said Céline Pares, lawyer for the CSE. “As of January 2022, we will initiate an action with the judicial tribunal in tort to have Aurelius recognized the responsibility for the collapse of Office Depot France”. Contacted, the management did not wish to speak.