Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. Olivier Biscay, I am the editor-in-chief of La Provence. I am particularly delighted to welcome you this evening for this now monthly ritual, our meeting here at Tangram. We are hosting an important personality in our country, Alexandre Bompard, CEO of the Carrefour group. I imagine you have all read Alexandre Bompard's interview this morning in La Provence. Thank you, Mr. President, in which we talk about inflation, commerce, societal commitment, innovation, artificial intelligence. We will see all that throughout this evening. Let's welcome him with your applause. Alexandre Bompard, please.
Thank you very much for welcoming me here. It's a great joy to be in Marseille and in this place full of history that carries high the colors and ambitions of CMA CGM and the Saadé family. This place is magical at the entrance to the Calanques. I am struck by the richness of Provencal history and geography. What you have done here with the Tangram center is remarkable, interdisciplinary, rigorous, open. It embodies a French economic world thirsty for openness, innovation, and excellence. Your reflection and constant investments are examples to follow. The forward-looking approach of Tangram is all the more important as we live in a world where crises strike more and more often and more and more strongly. In five years, three major crises—Covid, the war in Ukraine, the war in the Middle East—have profoundly redefined the rules. We have entered a world where geopolitical uncertainty is the norm. The rules of international law, the Bretton Woods framework, multilateral institutions like the WTO or the UN are contested. We are shifting toward a more fragmented, unstable, and resolutely multipolar world. In this recomposing world, Europe appears more necessary than ever, but will it ever be capable of embodying true power? France has never renounced its global role. It retains considerable assets: formidable entrepreneurs, large companies like CMA CGM and Carrefour, high-level researchers, a stable rule of law, and a unique geography. For global groups like CMA CGM or Carrefour, this new world order means combining short-term crisis management with long-term vision. It requires strong anchors and values. At Carrefour, that is the food transition for all—access for everyone to the best products at the best prices. With our Act for Food program, we were pioneers in promoting organic agriculture, healthy products, and fighting controversial substances. We are also engaging our 150 largest global suppliers on a 1.5°C trajectory and reducing food waste by 60% in our supply chain. At CMA CGM, it's your family values and commitments: your fight for decarbonized transport with your LNG and renewable fleet, your net-zero carbon target for 2050, and the action of the CMA CGM Foundation. These anchors allow companies like ours to show adaptability, agility, and resilience. For CEOs and leadership teams, it means keeping a long view and a clear mind. That is precisely what Rodolphe Saadé has done for 10 years. Let me now speak about Carrefour's transformation. Carrefour operates about 15,000 stores in over 40 countries, with more than 500,000 employees generating 100 billion euros in revenue annually. Our global presence is both integrated in six countries including France, Spain, and Brazil, and through international franchising. By 2030, we will be the first retailer in the world for geographic footprint, present in 60 countries, and the first retailer in Africa with coverage of 22 countries. Our mission is to solve a daily equation: control selling prices, fairly remunerate producers, secure supplies, and guarantee the best quality. Our sector is fascinating because it is deeply rooted in local realities. We hire 40,000 people per year and train young people in over 300 trades. Every French person is on average less than 8 minutes from a Carrefour store. Our stores are in rural areas and difficult neighborhoods. Retail remains the primary sector for social mobility. Our sector is at the forefront of technological, societal, and environmental changes, investing nearly 20 billion euros annually. A few years ago, many questioned the future of the physical store. Today, the sector has demonstrated its resilience. To project Carrefour into the future, we have presented our Carrefour 2030 strategic plan based on three pillars: our customers through price investments, an ambitious fresh plan, product innovations, and avant-garde CSR commitments; our stores and e-commerce with powerful investments; and technology, especially artificial intelligence, where our group already has a lead among global retailers. This is a growth plan that places us on the offensive with ambitious market share gains, including a target of 25% in France. We follow the work of CMA CGM with immense admiration. You inspire us with your audacity, colossal investments, and the way you prove that economic performance is inseparable from social and environmental performance. Far from resting on your successes, you constantly reinvest with your pioneering fight for sustainable transport, acquisitions to consolidate the supply chain, and investments in media and digital. Your ambition leaves no front or battle aside, and you bring your energy and vision everywhere without ever forgetting France and Marseille. Thank you again for your warm welcome. I am now very happy to answer Olivier Biscay's questions and yours.
Thank you very much, Alexandre Bompard, for these first elements. We will continue with your remarks and the interview this morning in La Provence. You mentioned that the physical store is still well established. When you arrived at Carrefour, you were clearly told that it was probably the end. That also reflects the need for a group like yours to constantly adapt. You spoke of CMA CGM, but today many business leaders have adaptation as their daily guiding thread.
Yes, adaptation is obviously essential for any business leader in a world that evolves at a colossal speed. You're right, I've been here for 7 years. When I arrived, every time I met an expert, they told me 'The physical store is dead.' Amazon would take everything, quick commerce, everyone would be delivered in less than 15 minutes. That's not entirely false because at that time a whole set of actors were born. Obviously, Amazon resisted, but many quick commerce actors, delivery in less than 30 minutes, some were capitalized up to 10 billion euros, they all disappeared because it's difficult to make that model profitable. But that means these models still hit traditional models head-on. So to adapt to this new reality, we had to combine, each with their jargon. For us, it's the omnichannel model, physical and digital distribution. That meant a digital transformation to articulate and smooth customer journeys between store and e-commerce. But the physical store resisted, it's stronger than ever. We open 1000 stores per year worldwide, and we see that pure e-commerce players, except Amazon which is a much more complete player, have suffered, while the physical store has remained.
Abroad, there is a model that inspired you in your adaptation, in these stores you talk about, in retail, food, commerce that you have probably reused in France. There is an ultra-dominant player in our industry, the most powerful by far, Walmart. With two particularities. First, they did a formidable job. They invested for 20 years in their digital transformation. They took colossal risks, they failed a lot, they accepted failure, but they invested a lot, transformed a lot, and it's an exceptional player. At the same time, they have a particularity. I discussed a lot with the current CEO of Walmart, who is leaving his position, who did a colossal job. One day he asked me, 'How far on average are your competitors from your store?' I compiled all our data and told him, 'On average, I have a competitor 4 minutes from each of my stores.' And I said, 'And you?' He said, 'Mine is 45 minutes.' What he meant by that was, 'You see, I am in a series of small local monopolies that give me a little more flexibility in my price investments, etc.' In France and Europe, more generally, competition is much stronger. Territories are smaller, competition is stronger, and so obviously our ability to invest very massively in transformations is a bit more reduced because we invest much more in price, much more in competition between stores. But it's the very dominant example of our industry.
You were talking about territories, that's part of your canvas, your particularity at Carrefour, as you said, having stores, a brand, proximity to the French. It's not a model you would go back on because we know it costs money. The particularity of Carrefour's model is a bit global. We operate all types of stores. We operate cash-and-carry in Brazil called Atacadão. We operate hypermarkets, supermarkets, small stores Carrefour City, Carrefour Contact, etc., and even more and more service stations for a number of global brands. So we operate all types of stores. That has a cost, an inherent complexity in mastering all these formats. But it's also a formidable asset because it allows us to get closer to customers and be present in all territories, rural areas as well as sensitive urban zones. I said earlier, we are the largest private employer in the country and a fairly pure and perfect model of social elevator. I have around me a number of colleagues who arrived at 18 filling shelves and are now members of the executive committee or run a store or a country. It's a model where the social elevator works very well. So we have a role in territories and a very particular role of social integrator and a model of social cohesion because when there is a store, a shopping center in territories, it's also economic dynamics, life, cohesion between populations.
You play that role, you who also have an important societal role?
It's even the great particularity of both our sector and Carrefour, that we are very present in difficult territories. In difficult neighborhoods, priority neighborhoods of city policy, there are always Carrefour stores. Just as there are Carrefour stores in the most remote rural areas. Today, often the last physical store. Initially, mayors said, 'I don't want a Carrefour store anymore.' Today, on the contrary, all mayors in France write to us saying, 'Would you like to open a small 500 or 700 square meter store in my rural area?' And in sensitive urban zones, it's the same. It's our role to be there. It's more difficult to develop an activity and succeed in a sensitive urban zone than in other zones. But that's also our mission.
What threatens you today? And tomorrow, beyond competition, you mentioned artificial intelligence, new technologies. That could challenge your model. How do you adapt? How do you approach this subject?
Well, we are in an era... I was talking with Rodolphe Saadé at noon and we often compare our experiences. With his global vision, it inspires me a lot. We are in an era where threats are everywhere and challenges are permanent. The other day, I was speaking at a major French school, and students asked me, 'Can you tell me what Carrefour will be in 20 years?' I told them, 'I must lack imagination, but I'm already trying to see where we will be in 5 years. Because if in 2019 I had told you that we would face the crises we have faced for 5 years, you would have said, 'You look tired, go rest.' Covid, Middle East, Ukraine, the explosion of artificial intelligence. So the challenge is permanent, and our job is both to keep a course, have extraordinarily strong convictions because the more it churns, the more you have to hold the stick firmly and have strong convictions, and at the same time adapt. Again, artificial intelligence today is not the AI of 6 months ago. Some convictions we had 6 months ago have been invalidated. That means we must constantly adapt, rethink the software, and that's both the beauty of our professions and their difficulty.
Isn't the biggest problem the consumption that could decline, the reality of the population who, we see, have trouble making ends meet and sometimes deny themselves consumption, clothing, going to the doctor? That's also it. And there too, you are in social cohesion, an important relay and observer.
You're right, the invariant of the last 5-10 years, if we stay in France, and we are on the front line to measure it, is the growing feeling of precariousness of a part of the French population. We are really on the front line of that, with both a renunciation of food quality, volume decreases, transfers from national brands to own brands, and as we discussed with Tania Saadé this afternoon, a growing part of the French population who by the 15th of the month can no longer consume, stops consuming. We see statistics that are extraordinarily marked. When you are 7-8 days from payday, you can no longer consume. And growing categories of our customers who completely drop out and are between food precariousness, recourse to food aid in its different forms, etc. That is a very powerful, very worrying element in a way. I find it very French because we are present in many European territories, and we do not see such a strong deformation of consumption structure as in France. When I tell public authorities, they say, 'We don't see it in statistics.' Yes, but we really see it in our revenues, and we do 60 billion in France. So we see a few things. We indisputably have a growing number of our fellow citizens who can no longer consume in an acceptable manner without being under great constraint.
How do you respond to that? Because obviously your mission is to make sure the price is as fair as possible, as low as possible for the inhabitants. But you can't continue to lower prices. We know markets are complicated. We know we have to support agricultural production, meet constraints. How do you manage that without a magic wand?
It's this famous equation that is very difficult to solve. Basically, our main mission, our main responsibility, what our customers ask of us, is to give them purchasing power. That's what they ask. When I walk through a store, which I do all the time, when I am accosted, the first demand is purchasing power. That's what the French ask for, it's price. And at the same time, I am asked to remunerate the agricultural world in good conditions, which is a bit of a French particularity. This very strong attention to farmer remuneration is much stronger in France than abroad. The political weight of the agricultural world is different in other countries. That doesn't mean they have worse agriculture. So the remuneration of producers, securing supplies over the long term, and how we help the agricultural world transform. And then we have a third mission because the singularity of our brand is to provide food quality. Bring food quality to all. How do we develop fresh products, organic, healthy products? So this apparently irreconcilable equation is our job, its difficulty and also its nobility. But we must keep in mind, and this is a discussion I often have with public authorities, that the main demand of French consumers is price. Every time I am told, 'Let's reopen negotiations with the industrial world,' I say, 'Very willingly, but there will be 5% inflation, we can do it but that's what it costs.' So that's the difficulty we have to resolve, the apparent contradiction of our profession.
But aren't we at the end of a system really? You are at the forefront on a major subject, consumption, purchasing power, prices. Aren't we at the end of a system where we won't be able to hold everything together? You said it, industry, agriculture, price, social cohesion, and in a French economic model that is a bit shaky.
No, we are not at the end because this equation will continue to be posed. We will continue to be asked for prices. We will continue to be asked to support the agricultural world, and we will continue, and that's our mission, to give as much food quality as possible to our customers. And at the same time, we do this today in an increasingly constrained framework, under very strong public finance constraints. We talked this morning in your columns about the fuel issue, which is a very good indicator of where our country is in a normal public finance situation. It goes without saying that the state today would be in stronger support of consumers than it is today. We can't blame them. They no longer have the capacity to act. When you no longer have the capacity to act, you no longer act. That's an indicator of the state of our public finances. If we had managed public finances well in recent years, we would do what happens in countries that are not examples over the long term. Who would have told us 10 years ago that a country like Spain could in 5 minutes provide aid of 4 to 5 billion in a crisis like this, and the French state would be incapable of doing so? It's not that they don't want to, they don't have the means. But that says something about our public powerlessness. We are in a period of public powerlessness. Despite all the reforms carried out in the first part of the current mandates, we are in a period where public finances strangle us, and we see it well in this crisis.
But we hear you, a business leader, you are part of it, Alexandre Bompard, calling for reforms. You said this morning, 'We will not escape deep reforms in France' or targeting the powerlessness of public authorities. And I have the impression that from Tangram to Tangram, I hear the same business leaders, the same words from representatives of the economic world saying the same thing. It's been going on for years. We would like to get out of it. But do you see the end of the tunnel?
I think the voice of economic leaders has never been as strong and as expected, at least on the subjects that concern them. And I think with humility, because I don't consider the political world simple. I don't consider managing the French state simple; it's incredibly complex because the French people are contradictory by nature. So it's difficult to lead, difficult to take positions. It's not 'just do this.' That's not it. However, when we give up on absolutely essential reforms, pension reform is one. It's not the mother of all battles, but we spent 4 years passing a reform. 4 years. For 4 years, we talked about this subject, which occupied public space and prevented us from doing other things. The pension reform passed. And then suddenly, because of a slightly different political configuration, we decide to renounce it. We must measure what that means in terms of inability to move on subjects. We see it today through the fuel crisis. So indeed, it's not 'just do this,' but as economic leaders, we must try to state a certain number of realities. We are all confronted with a global world, other territories where competitiveness is stronger. We are citizens, we are patriots. When I say that, I take no pleasure. I would dream of being able to say that France is in a dynamic situation, envied everywhere. I would dream of saying that. The reality is that no. There are wonderful assets in this country. Every time I am abroad, I only praise France because I love this country passionately, and I see these exceptional assets. But we are in a period where, faced with global competition, we talked at noon about Asia, other European countries, the African continent developing at a phenomenal speed. We must react quickly because the risk of decline is there. It's a competition. So like for companies, the reality is that we have global competition, and the risk of decline would have consequences both on the power of our country and on its inhabitants. That's why economic leaders can sometimes make their voices heard because, fundamentally, it is freer, and if it can help politicians take stronger directions of transformation and reform, it will have served its purpose.
But haven't we already reached the level of decline? Or do you...
I still believe that this country has exceptional resources. I still believe it has capacities to bounce back. Maybe I'm a bit naive, but I always think that France has capacities to bounce back, and Europe more broadly. And when we look at the world today, we say, well, the United States is in a very singular period. Europe has assets to assert, and France has assets to assert. So I don't want to resign myself to a form of fatalism that would say, 'France is definitively declined, it will not return to the competition.' There are countries, again, we talked about some European countries. 5 or 10 years ago, you were told Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, these countries, how will they get out? They haven't become among the most competitive countries in the world, but they have done an absolutely remarkable job and have come back into the game. For France, which is not in the same difficulty as those countries but could be one day, it's time, but it's possible.
But that means that you, as a business leader, who employ...
Many employees, we need labor reforms. You talked about retirement. Does that mean working more, producing more? These have been topics in the public debate. Just a few days ago, we were wondering whether bakeries should be allowed to work on May 1st. Is that the real issue that would allow France to regain its competitiveness? Work more, produce more? But can our country sustainably work less and for less time than other countries?
The answer is no. It's impossible. So collectively we will have to accept this reality. We cannot today finance a social protection system that is based on work by working less and for less time than others. This subject is politically incredibly complex, but we have to raise it because it is a subject of decline in itself.
Then, like any business leader, I am struck by the accumulation of standards. Take the example of commercial relations. In France, for 30 years, there have been 26 laws regulating how I should buy a product from Coca-Cola. In other countries where I operate, there have been two laws. Just since the arrival of the President, there have been four laws, each time going backwards. This lack of stability is a huge burden, especially for SMEs. When you compete with global players, it's easier for a foreign actor to enter France than for a French actor. I am more controlled as Carrefour than my global competitors. When you tell an American that, they say you have a real problem. Yes, we do.
But Alexandre Bompard, before giving the floor to the audience, is France capable of turning the system around? The real issue is the upcoming presidential election. How do we make the shift?
The greatest difficulty is making public authorities grasp the idea of global competition. The President has understood this, but beyond him, the political class struggles with this concept. I often feel interlocutors think we complain for no reason. If we continue like this, the decline will accelerate and become irreversible. The upcoming election is key. We must put economic questions at the heart of the debate. It's difficult for politicians to raise these issues, but we have no choice. We need a statesman who understands global competition and geopolitics. I don't believe that running a company qualifies someone to easily step into politics.
