The Casino group could cut more than 3,000 positions

This is one of the Casino group's explosive files since its takeover at the end of March by the consortium led by Daniel Kretinsky. And the first trial by fire for its new general director Philippe Palazzi who has the difficult task of restoring a group that is asphyxiated. This Wednesday morning, the new management revealed its cards on its thorny draft social plan (PSE) which awaits employees, announcing that it wants to eliminate between 1,293 and 3,267 jobs. She presented the broad outlines of her transformation project to staff representatives from the various entities (Franprix, Monoprix and Naturalia) of the group which today has 28,000 employees. They were much more before the distributor was forced to sell around 300 Casino super and hypermarkets to Auchan, Intermarché and Carrefour in recent months, before the effective takeover by the new shareholders, due to very serious financial difficulties.

This announcement is only the first step: an official meeting will be held in around ten days marking the launch of negotiations with the trade union organizations which should last four months and which promise to be particularly tough. On the union side, where the loss of 6,000 jobs was expected in recent weeks, there is already fear that management will refuse to play the game of discussion. Philippe Palazzi, however, has not hesitated to increase his trips to the head office in recent months, to interact with members of the staff.

“This draft job protection plan is part of a broad transformation plan that has become essential to ensure the sustainability of the Group and turn it around,” insists management in a press release.

Also read: How Daniel Kretinsky's teams prepared to take over the management of Casino

This plan was designed to preserve at all costs the head office in Saint-Étienne which Daniel Kretinsky has committed not to close in the face of employee anger. There is also no question of drawing the curtain on the headquarters in Clichy (Monoprix), whose lease ends at the end of 2025, and in Vitry, which includes purchases of goods from the group and Franprix.

To reduce the size of the workforce, management plans in particular to rationalize existing positions by eliminating headquarters functions and in particular “the pooling of more than 200 positions in Saint-Étienne”. Also, the 1,293 job cuts envisaged in total in this internal reorganization would then affect the Clichy and Vitry headquarters more. “The Saint Étienne Group headquarters would thus retain 1,010 positions out of the current 1,564.”

As for the other deletions, they will concern the closure of some of the 26 super and hypermarkets still within the group. The latter should not succeed in selling them all, which would imply 1,974 job cuts at most. Same delicate situation for certain warehouses which were intended for super and hypermarkets and which remain unsold.

Suffice to say that the day promises to be intense for the new management which also plans to communicate, at the end of the day, its first quarter results. A first since the takeover by the new shareholders.