The Carrefour Group has announced: in 2026 it will continue the transition to rental and franchising management – in other words outsourcing – of some of its stores. The Évry (Essonne) court on Friday actually rejected the request of the CFDT services federation, which opposed the continuation of the policy that has been accelerated since 2017.
The union actually criticized the changes made under the presidency of Alexandre Bompard. In the space of eight years, the group’s 344 supermarkets and hypermarkets (that’s around 27,300 employees) have switched to rental management – a model that allows the brand to maintain its market share, but shifts staff costs and some of the investment in the store to independent managers. The CFDT sees it as a form of “disguised social planning”, and an abuse of rights. The union asked the court to end this policy, and demanded damages of 23 million euros, for the collective harm caused to the profession.
“Pragmatic choice”
All his requests were rejected. The brand welcomed this in its press release, noting that the court decision “(confirms) thus the legality of the use of rental management and franchising, both in principle and in its modalities”, regretting that the union “has chosen to take the matter to court”.
The use of rental management, commonly used by restaurants or retail chains, is not a new process. Carrefour has been using it for a long time for its small department stores – often as a first step to becoming a franchise (in this case, the manager bought the business). Targeting loss-making large format stores is newer. Of the 344 sales points affected since 2017, there are 95 hypermarkets. By 2023, Carrefour announced that it will achieve half of its turnover in France in an integrated format (stores managed within a group), the other half through rental and franchise management.
The group has always defended this “pragmatic choice”: “The only reason why we put these loss-making hypermarkets under lease management is to avoid closing them,” explained Jérôme Nanty, director of human resources at Carrefour, to the Parisian last January. My goal is to avoid PES and 2024 shows that this can happen. »
CFDT appealed
The CFDT also points to the fact that employees lose, at the end of the 15-month period, certain social benefits, a loss estimated at an average of 2,500 euros per year per employee. He has indicated that he will appeal the decision. “Of course, we would prefer to win our case in the first instance, but the elements we continue to gather convince us in our approach,” said Sylvain Macé, national secretary of the CFDT services federation.
In its press release, the union emphasized that it would continue to “condemn the socially dangerous model”, pointing to the “clear economic dependence (of rental-managed stores) on the Carrefour group” and “highly degraded” working conditions.
Another court decision is expected in 2026. The Association of Carrefour Franchisees (AFC) is also suing the brand in a separate procedure, accusing it of an “unequal commercial relationship”. The procedure in which Bercy intervened, requested that the group be fined 200 million euros.
