Colruyt signs social agreement in France

Colruyt Group has reached an agreement with social partners in France. This will enable the retailer to finalize the sale of its French stores to Groupement Mousquetaires, E.Leclerc, Coopérative U, and Carrefour.

Search for buyers continues

As is well known, Colruyt Group decided last spring to discontinue its French retail activities. In the meantime, the company has reached agreements on the sale of 81 stores and 44 gas stations to Groupement Mousquetaires (the group behind Intermarché and Netto) and of 19 additional stores and one gas station to E.Leclerc, Coopérative U, and Carrefour. The search for buyers for the remaining five stores and for the warehouses in Dole Choisey, Rochefort-sur-Nenon, and Gondreville-Fontenoy is continuing, Colruyt said in a press release. According to French sources, those stores will close.

Now that an agreement has also been reached on a social support plan (“plan de sauvegarde de l’emploi“) with the social partners, the sale options for the stores and gas stations can be finalized. The group expects that the implementation of the agreement will result in 55 to 65 million euros in restructuring costs.

“On behalf of the management, I would like to thank all the French employees involved for their commitment over the past years and especially in recent months,” said CEO Stefan Goethaert. “We acknowledge that this past period has been difficult and are fully aware of the human and social consequences. Thanks to the constructive collaboration of all parties involved in recent months, we have been able to reach the above-mentioned majority collective agreement.”