2023-12-05 14:14:02
Around a hundred Casino employees in Vitry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne), several hundred in Saint-Etienne: the distributor’s unions called for a day of demonstration this Tuesday, worried about the future of the group which also has Franprix and Monoprix.
On December 1, the Casino unions filed a strike notice starting December 5, which runs until December 31. This “concerns all employees and managers of the Casino group”, declared in a joint press release the five representative organizations of the group (FO, CGT, CFDT, UNSA, CFE-CGC) united as an inter-union group.
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“The group’s employees are attached to the company and its values, the level of seniority here is between 15 and 18 years,” Christophe Deshayes, CFE-CGC union representative for Franprix, told AFP this Tuesday. at the foot of its brand’s headquarters in Val-de-Marne. Around 1,600 people work at Franprix headquarters, according to the CFE-CGC.
Unions fear a “slice sale”
The group (Monoprix, Franprix, Pao de Acucar, Exito, etc.), which still had 200,000 employees at the end of 2022, including 50,000 in France, is going through very strong turbulence. Casino, strangled by unsustainable debt, must change majority shareholder in the first quarter of 2024 with the takeover by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, Frenchman Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière and the British fund Attestor.
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In the meantime, Casino’s economic situation remains complicated. The group had to resolve to study “marks of interest” from competitors for the purchase of hypermarkets and supermarkets. The group did not specify what scope was concerned, but all of the large format stores could be sold, according to sources close to the matter. Enough to make the unions fear a “cut sale”.
Competitors Auchan and Intermarché have submitted an offer for all of the stores, an Auchan representative, Serge Papin, officially indicated on Thursday December 30 on BFM Business. Other offers have been submitted, not officially confirmed.
“Casino is dead, we ask to be able to leave with dignity”
In Saint-Etienne, the procession set off this Tuesday around 10:30 a.m. from the headquarters of Casino, an imposing liner where 2,000 people work, towards the town hall, where representatives of the inter-union met the mayor. “Casino is dead, we ask to be able to leave with dignity,” Hervé Preynat, of the CFDT, explained to AFP.
The deputy for Loire Quentin Bataillon (Renaissance) recalled the government’s commitment to employment and maintaining the headquarters in Saint-Etienne, and judged that Jean-Charles Naouri, still CEO and first shareholder of the group before a handover planned for the first quarter of 2024, “has accountability”. “What we are seeing today should have been seen several years ago.”
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In Vitry-sur-Seine, employees deplore the lack of visibility on their situation. “We continue to work, but for what? We don’t know where we are going or where we will be in a few months,” laments Mireille, 25 years at Casino and who does not wish to give her last name.
“If other brands buy the stores, there is the risk that our jobs will be duplicated,” observes Dieynaba Diouf, a non-unionized employee. Asked about the possibility of a move to Saint-Etienne in the event of the closure of the Vitry-sur-Seine headquarters, she explained that “it would not be easy”. “My husband would have to resign, we don’t know if he would find work again, or if we could sell our home and buy a new one with the increase in borrowing rates…”, she detailed.
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