🔴 Le PDG de Carrefour, Alexandre Bompard, sur la situation du groupe et les perspectives du secteur

Thank you, Mr. President. Ladies and gentlemen deputies, with your permission I will make a preliminary statement. I am very happy to discuss the retail sector. French retail is a wealth for our country. Our mission is to solve the equation of controlling consumer prices while remunerating producers and securing supply. It is a sector with non-delocalized jobs - Carrefour alone hires 40,000 per year. It is close to social reality; every French person is on average within 8 minutes of a Carrefour store. We are the first sector of social promotion. It invests nearly 10 billion euros annually in modernization. The competition is fierce: between brands, formats, integrated and independent, physical and digital, French and foreign discounters. French commerce is one of the most competitive but also most constrained in the world. The sector faces challenges: polarization between winners and losers, prudent consumer behavior after hyperinflation, macroeconomic uncertainties, and geopolitical tensions. Some historic French retailers are suffering or disappearing. Carrefour operates about 15,000 stores in over 45 countries with over 500,000 employees. We have launched a new strategic plan for 2030 to invest in offer, price competitiveness, stores, fresh products, CSR, e-commerce, digital, and AI. Earlier, questions concerned the future of physical stores; we have demonstrated their resilience. I regret that distribution is too often viewed with suspicion, especially during negotiations or debates on margins. This is paradoxical because we responded during Covid and the price crisis, and French people rank us among their favorite companies. I will not stop convincing you. My strong conviction: the temptation to intervene in prices and private sector freedom is too high in France. No other country, except regimes no one wants to imitate, has such a permanent interventionist temptation. Commerce relies on freedom of assortment, negotiation, and pricing. The customer always decides. Let us preserve this balance and give the sector enough room to maneuver. Thank you for your attention. Mr. President, do you want me to answer the list of questions now or will they come in other forms?

I will respond. You asked about transformations in consumption since 2022. The hyperinflation crisis had a huge impact: prices rose about 25% in two years. The end of the month became difficult for many, now even the middle of the month. Volumes first dropped, then consumption structure shifted towards private label brands, which now represent nearly 40% of Carrefour's sales in France, up from 25% in 2018. Also, quality declined: bio products, fruits, vegetables, fish, meat all declined. Since mid-2025, things are rebalancing, but the current crisis could reignite inflation. On the Iran conflict: four and a half weeks in, the main effect is on petrol. We don't see inflationary tensions on products yet, unlike during the Ukraine conflict. But if the conflict persists, there could be effects on nitrogen fertilizers affecting future harvests. For now, the National Consumer Institute predicts 2% inflation, so impact is still limited. On low prices and fair producer remuneration: our mission is to give purchasing power to customers while securing supply and fair income for farmers. The Egalim laws have helped by safeguarding the agricultural raw material. They are not perfect but they have improved the situation. The only requirement is that we know the value of the agricultural raw material, which industrials sometimes do not disclose. On town center commerce: I am the leading player in food retail in town centers. We have nearly 5,500 stores under brands like Carrefour Express, City, Contact, Mountain. I open 250-350 stores per year. These are not independent stores but they contribute to town center vitality. My role is to continue developing town center commerce.

Thank you, Deputy. You have before you the director of Carrefour, the leading player in fruits and vegetables, butcheries, and fishmongers in France. We source milk, eggs, poultry 100% in France, beef and pork 96% in France. My objective is to continue developing this French sourcing. Regarding your question on perequation of margins, I do not fully agree. I believe our job is to let actors set prices. I am not in favor of administered prices. I have launched 200 products at cost price to address purchasing power concerns. The perequation of margins is complex. I don't have the same margin on all products because I don't have the same costs. For example, for Coca-Cola, I have no ability to set price; the company sets it. If I raised it 30%, I would suffer commercially. The cost base is different: maintaining a fresh produce section requires labor and care, while a soda section is just pallets. So the initial gross margin is not the same. Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy. On technology: AI will develop greatly. We have announced a training effort for all our employees. It is a subject that frightens, so all must be trained. In the next two years, all Carrefour employees will be trained on AI and see how it improves their work conditions. On local products: their share is constantly growing. We have developed initiatives to make life easier for local farmers and breeders. A few years ago, one had to fill 40 pages to be referenced. Now it is a one-page contract signed by the store director. The more local offer we have, the more our stores perform, so it is a strategic objective. On your last question about reconciling purchasing power and producer remuneration: the agricultural raw material is now safeguarded. I no longer negotiate it. That ensures fairer remuneration. Does it solve all problems? No, but it is an improvement you brought in regulating this sector.

Thank you, Deputy. I will respond to your first point. We are not present in the occupied territories. Carrefour has no stores under its banner there. I have said it repeatedly. Our franchise contracts exclude it. So there is no Carrefour store in those areas. On your question about the balance of our business: the fight for purchasing power we wage every day. We have launched an operation of 200 products at cost price, 50% of which are Nutri-Score A or B to promote food quality, to fight for purchasing power.

It is our mission to serve French purchasing power. At the same time, I must have ambition for my group because the more ambitious and solid it is, the more it can invest and develop in France and internationally, and carry out CSR battles on plastic, animal welfare, and CO2 pollution. For that I need strong resources. Wealth is shared between shareholder remuneration and employee profit-sharing, which has tripled since my arrival. It is a balance that allows us to develop, have the power to invest in other geographic areas, and continue our development in France.

Thank you, Madam Deputy. I won't repeat the figures on French sourcing; you mentioned them earlier. For the major sectors, we are at around 95 to 100%, and for fruits and vegetables, around 85%. Anything I can source from French consumption and production, I do. There are some sectors, as you know, that are not produced in France. In that case, I have to source abroad, but my objective is French sourcing. For fruits and vegetables, I am at 85%; for proteins, between 95 and 100%. That is the reality. Secondly, thank you for raising contract farming. It is extremely important at Carrefour. We have 31,000 farmers in long-term contract arrangements with us. That means we build long-term commitments where we guarantee volume, price, and processing, because nothing is worse for a French farmer than a lack of visibility. This contractualization, which I did not invent, is built around our Carrefour quality lines. It is at the heart of the Carrefour model. We alone account for 40% of contract farming in France, and it is an absolutely essential element of our offer, and we will continue to develop it because it gives visibility to the farming world. On the Mercosur issue, I was the first to express an opinion, which is somewhat different from my colleagues because I am present in Brazil; I am even the leading distributor there. Let's not say there will never be Brazilian products in France because that is already not true. Soybeans? We don't have them in France. Oranges also come from there. So there will always be Brazilian products coming to France, and we should be pleased about that; it is an agriculture that should not be stigmatized. On the main question of meat, I said something very simple: when I am in Brazil, I buy Brazilian meat, which again should not be stigmatized. When I am in France, I buy French meat. It's not more complicated than that. The goal is to source meat from our own countries, and that is how it works. The 25% market share target you mentioned is important for us. It means competitiveness, the ability to develop strong offers, open new stores, be competitive on prices, but also have unique elements on fresh products, own-brand, organic, and fuel. Forgive me because this is the second time I've had the question; do not think I am avoiding it. The subject is very simple. I negotiate every day. Today I am negotiating based on prices that have come down a bit, as you saw this morning. That will be reflected in my stations in two days. The margin I take on that is extraordinarily low, at 1 or 2 cents. It has always been the same. Why? Because it is an extremely strong draw product and we do not margin on this activity. 1 or 2 cents covers some costs but not more. I don't need to make additional commitments because below that would mean selling at a loss, but I will continue to take an extraordinarily low margin.

Thank you very much, Mr. Deputy. This will allow me to talk about purchasing centers. I didn't answer the deputy's question earlier, so I'll get to it quickly. Concordis is a purchasing center we created with U and a German partner, RTG. What negotiations do we conduct at Concordis? 45 global suppliers. Only two of them are French, and you will see they are not small players: Danone and Lactalis. For the other 43, there is no agricultural raw material. The only exceptions are Danone and Lactalis. We have committed to respecting all the principles of the EGalim law. So contrary to what is sometimes said — and I understand because it is a complex subject — we do not negotiate in these centers with small companies; all negotiations take place in France, not on agricultural raw materials. 43 of the companies have nothing to do with the agricultural world. They are Unilever, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola. You see the link with agriculture is quite weak. You are right, the origin of products, the highlighting of origin, is extraordinarily important. We try to do it a lot. We are partners of Origine Info. I just want to point out a contradiction that I am sure you see in Haute-Loire but is very important. Again, we have citizens who suffer greatly from purchasing power constraints. When they are faced with a French strawberry and a Spanish strawberry, the problem is that they want the French strawberry because they like French farmers, but at the same time sometimes they cannot afford it. If they want to eat strawberries in summer, they cannot. So this contradiction is very strong. There is a gap between declaring you want to consume French and support French farmers, and the reality of what you can do. So sometimes when a fruit or vegetable is cheaper from elsewhere, I buy it. Why is it cheaper? Not because I buy cheaper. I am also present in Spain. So why is it cheaper? Because social charges are not the same, labour costs are different, standards are different, regulatory complexity is different. The gap is linked to that. I source in all European countries, so I can tell you what I see. In Europe, I buy at the same value, but what it costs the farming world is not at all the same thing. So there is a competitiveness gap for French farms that must be addressed because it puts French farms, their competitiveness, and thus food sovereignty under strain.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy. I tried in my introductory remarks to make you feel the competition and the crisis of large-scale retail. Do you know how many hypermarkets I have closed since my arrival? Zero. When I arrived, on the very day, a television channel — which is now the subject of another committee — announced that I had a plan to close 50 hypermarkets. Why the hypermarket? Because it is the format in crisis. To avoid closing hypermarkets, we tried to develop internal projects to revive them, to find more commercial competitiveness, but we also turned to entrepreneurship, to franchising. When you receive my independent colleagues — Leclerc, Intermarché, U — you don't tell them it's sub-employment, you don't tell them it's not real jobs, you don't say working conditions are degraded. You are right to say that even if working conditions in large-scale retail are difficult, working in stores is hard. Franchising is not a bad thing. It allowed us to save jobs. It allowed us to avoid closing 50 stores. Let me do the math: 50 stores with an average of 300 employees. If I had closed them, you see the social consequences. We decided to save these stores by converting some to franchising and management leasing. How did we do it? We did it by negotiating a social clause that is currently being renegotiated. With whom did we sign it? With almost all social partners. There are legal guarantees on remuneration, but also, thanks to social dialogue, we added things like health insurance, provident insurance, purchase discounts, etc. That is the work of social dialogue. Now, the situation is never perfect. There are stores where the situation was more difficult. But every year I analyze all employees through an independent institute. I ask them what the satisfaction level of our employees is one, two, three, four, five years after the transfer. Generally, it has improved compared to the previous situation. Why? Because nothing is worse than being in a struggling store that has no future. Often the entrepreneurs, the franchisees — because it is an important model in distribution — give a future to these stores. The stores are doing better. That does not mean there is no concern, of course you are right to mention it, but overall the situation for employees has improved. Furthermore, I would like to point out something on employment. We create 400 new stores every year. Today, 150,000 people work under the Carrefour banner. That is many more than when I arrived.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy. While waiting to go inaugurate a store in your town... Thank you, Mr. Deputy. Bravo, Mr. Mayor. Organic farming has been my fight since I arrived. I set the objective that we would be the world's leading player in organic sales, and that is the case. We are by far the leading player in France, both in general organic and specialized organic stores, since I also have specialized organic brands like Bio c' Bon. It is a very good example of the contradiction I mentioned earlier. When the tension on purchasing power became absolute for French households, organic consumption slowed down very sharply. When the constraint eased a little and purchasing power recovered a bit, organic started again. It always starts sooner in specialized organic stores than in general organic, because the purchasing power constraint weighs more on customers who come every day to hypermarkets than in specialized organic stores where customers have a bit more purchasing power. Nevertheless, even in my large hypermarkets, I see organic experiences we have in hypermarkets and supermarkets starting again. The question is if inflation returns due to the current crisis, what effect would that have? But be assured, our commitment to organic is total. It is truly the number one fight we have, along with fresh products, on organic. You are right to ask about physical and digital, and I would also draw your attention to the still deadly consequences of the development of Shein and Temu. Deputy Ruffin asked me earlier about employment consequences. I want to tell you how Shein and Temu have killed and destroyed jobs over the last two years at a frightening rate in entire sectors, whether in textiles or household appliances, etc. I am present in all territories and in shopping centers, and I see the daily destruction. There is not a week when a specialist textile chain doesn't go out of business because they can no longer hold on. So the battle against Shein and Temu is absolute and absolutely essential. We must tax these companies very heavily. We must control them very heavily. They respect no safety standards and all the standards that apply to us. So you must do this work; I appeal to the parliamentary representation because the consequences in terms of employment, value destruction, and environmental consequences of the development of these platforms in two, three, five years will be too late. It is already too late for many players and already too late for many of your territories because these are also industries, as we see particularly in textiles and toys. This battle is absolutely important, and we need your support.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy. [Clears throat] Simplifying my group? Yes, of course, I dream of it, but you see that we have many businesses, many territories, many assets. I think more than simplifying the group, we need to better explain our role, and I take responsibility for that. I think in the past, large-scale retail was wrong, when everything was going well, to stay hidden and not explain what the businesses were, what the roles were, the role of social integration, how it promotes social mobility, how it works with the agricultural world, what the CSR commitments are, what the climate commitments are. We must explain better, and that is absolutely essential. On the subject of fuel, I won't surprise you: I believe a lot in competition. We are very competitive. Don't get me wrong, we get along quite well personally. But competition is there every day. Every day, I check the prices and my teams monitor what is happening at Leclerc, Intermarché, U, Total stations, territory by territory, rural and urban areas, and we set the price. So the most effective thing is for each to have their own commercial freedom. For example, I offer a 5% discount for those who have the Carrefour card. Millions of our customers have it. We aim to reach 14 million customers, so we have that dynamic: 5% off on fuel with the Carrefour card. Others have other mechanisms, and it is effective for lowering food prices as well as fuel. On labeling and information, you are absolutely right. Everything that provides information on the origin of products — geographic origin and nutritional identity — is essential. We have announced, for example, that we will label on the Carrefour brand when products are ultra-processed, so that the customer knows whether they are buying simple ingredients or ultra-processed ones. We need to give our customers information on both geographic origin and nutritional identity.

Mr. Deputy, I thank you for relaying so carefully the words of the large global agri-food manufacturers. Do you know what would happen if I did not negotiate? If I accept the 3 to 5% increases they present, inflation would be 5%. I think none of our citizens wants that. So my role is to negotiate. I do not negotiate with producers or on agricultural raw materials. In the purchasing centers, I negotiate with 45 global players — none of them are linked to French agriculture. Unilever, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Heineken — the link is limited. I must negotiate to deliver purchasing power. If I don't, prices explode. So I will continue to negotiate with large global suppliers and not on agricultural raw materials. But I absolutely take your point: transparency is essential. For transparency to exist, we...

We need to know the price of the agricultural raw material. If I may, it must be French. Since you are about to legislate, I ask you to be very vigilant about the fact that it is rather illogical that I do not negotiate Polish, German, or Italian agricultural raw material for products that could come to France. So ensure that the agri-food industries give us both the value of the agricultural raw material and that this raw material is French. As for the outcome of negotiations, it is a somewhat important competitive data point, but I told you prices will increase very little before any potential return of inflation, which I hope will be very low. Today we are between 0 and 1%.