“In 2024, Casino may no longer exist and our jobs will disappear. » This is the fear expressed by Nathalie Devienne (FO), one of the spokespersons for the group’s inter-union, on Sunday, during a demonstration in Saint-Etienne, where the brand’s headquarters are located. Casino has entered into negotiations with its competitors Intermarché and Auchan to sell them almost all of its super and hypermarkets, which would leave the Monoprix, Franprix and Cdiscount brands within its scope.
What future for jobs?
The sale will affect “around 18,000 employees” out of the 50,000 the group has in France, the union said on Tuesday. Questioned by AFP, management mentioned a total of 12,248 full-time jobs affected, notably in the 313 stores which could be sold: 241 supermarkets, 65 hypermarkets, three drive-thru sites, one Spar and three Leader Prices.
According to the inter-union, discussions are still underway for the warehouses and should be concluded in January. “Five of the thirteen warehouses will be saved,” declared Tuesday to the National Assembly the Minister Delegate for Industry, Roland Lescure. He reiterated that the State would be attentive to “preserving, as much as possible, employment in Saint-Etienne and throughout the territory”.
“There is going to be an unprecedented social breakdown at headquarters level, where yesterday [lundi] management held staff information meetings to announce the implementation of a PES [plan de sauvegarde de l’emploi] early January,” reported Jean Pastor (CGT), another spokesperson for the inter-union. And “a Casino job is not worth an Intermarché job, where it’s the social Wild West,” he accused.
A decreasing scope
The scope of the group, which, at the end of 2022, still had 200,000 employees worldwide, including 50,000 in France, continues to shrink. In July, however, its CEO for a few more months, Jean-Charles Naouri, said in Point having spared no effort so that the group was not “broken into pieces, after a bloodbath”. But Casino is in the process of withdrawing from Latin America and, in France alone, the group has lost or could lose a very significant part of its commercial surface area.
At the end of May, he agreed to sell 119 stores with a total turnover of 1.05 billion euros to the Les Mousquetaires/Intermarché group. Around sixty other stores, with a turnover of 461 million euros, could be sold optionally, if Casino “requested” it, within three years.
The 313 super and hypermarkets affected by the exclusive negotiations announced Monday evening with Auchan and, again, with Les Mousquetaires/Intermarché, weigh, according to Casino, around 3.6 billion euros excluding taxes and excluding gasoline. Casino is therefore in the process of selling stores with a minimum turnover of 4.65 billion euros, or a small third of the 14.2 billion (excluding taxes) generated in 2022 in France.
There would remain, in addition to the e-retailer Cdiscount, the Monoprix chain, which achieved 4.4 billion euros in turnover in 2022, via its 858 points of sale (with stores under the Naturalia brand), and Franprix, whose turnover reached 1.5 billion euros last year, in 1,098 points of sale including 775 franchisees.
The question of local shops
Casino also claims, in its financial documentation, a turnover of 1.5 billion euros in 2022 for its local network, which at the end of last year had 6,313 stores under the Spar, Vival, Le Petit brands. Casino. The group also includes, in this local network, Sherpa stores, present in particular in winter sports resorts.
But in a press release published Monday evening, Sherpa clarified that its 119 stores did not belong “in any way to the convenience branch of the Casino group”, with which the brand has had a “supply contract since 2009”. Sherpa “remains independent and is therefore not for sale”, underlined this brand.
According to the Casino inter-union, management declared having refused the offer made by Carrefour to buy all of the local stores. The Loire MP Quentin Bataillon (Renaissance) declared to AFP Monday evening that the CEO of the Carrefour group, Alexandre Bompard, had presented him with an offer relating “from now on only to the convenience stores within the Casino perimeter”, the vast majority of which are managed free.