La Poste (France)

Last updated
La Poste S.A.
Company type Public limited company
Industry Postal services, courier
Founded1991;33 years ago (1991)
(first occurrence of French national postal services in 1477)
Headquarters9 rue du Colonel Pierre Avia,
75015 Paris
,
France
Area served
France / Monaco / Andorra
Key people
 Philippe Wahl
(CEO)
Services Letter post, parcel service, banking, insurance, mobile network operator
RevenueIncrease2.svg €34.6 billion (2021) [1]
Decrease2.svg €2.1 billion (2021) [1]
Total equity Increase2.svg €20.9 billion (2021) [1]
Owner Caisse des dépôts (66%)
French government (34%)
Number of employees
249,304 (2019) [2]
Parent Groupe La Poste
Subsidiaries La Banque postale, La Poste Mobile, Poste Immo, Geopost, Docaposte, DPDgroup, GREENOVIA, Viapost, Mediapost
Website laposte.fr

La Poste is a postal service company in France, operating in Metropolitan France, the five French overseas departments and regions and the overseas collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon. Under bilateral agreements, La Poste also has responsibility for mail services in Monaco through La Poste Monaco and in Andorra alongside the Spanish company Correos.

Contents

The company was created in 1991 following the split of the French PTT, a government department responsible for mail, telegraph and telephone services in France. The PTT, founded in 1879, was then divided between La Poste, which became responsible for postal service, and France Télécom (nowadays Orange) for the telecommunication services. France Télécom was immediately privatised but La Poste has remained a public company. However, in 1997 EU directive 97/67/EC required member states to "fully open the postal sector to competition", [3] with the result that the French government allowed private postal service companies in 2005 and transformed La Poste into a public-owned company limited by shares in 2010.

La Poste is part of the Groupe La Poste, which also comprises a bank and insurance company (La Banque postale), a logistics service company (DPDgroup) and a mobile network operator (La Poste Mobile). Although its postal activities are declining because of the development of the Internet, they still represented half of the company's income. Other activities, such as parcel delivery and banking, are on the rise. The two represented respectively a quarter of the company's income in 2017. [1]

History

Kingdom of France

A coaching inn in Launois-sur-Vence. Launoy 1508.JPG
A coaching inn in Launois-sur-Vence.

During the Middle Ages, postal delivery in France was not organised by the state and was provided by private enterprise. University envoys dominated the market from 13th century onwards. In 1477, King Louis XI created coaching inns to deliver his own letters. These inns were for temporary use and usually led to battlefields. In 1576, royal mail delivery was further improved with the creation of the office of royal envoy. Royal envoys were allowed to provide services to private individuals. They prefigured modern postal services and their existence led to the appearance of the first post offices at the end of the 16th century. [4]

The first set of fees appeared in 1627 for letters sent to Bordeaux, Lyon, Toulouse and Dijon. As with the rest of Europe, stamps did not exist in France at that time and mail was paid for by the recipient. The first map of post roads was published in 1632 and a book compiling lists of roads and inns including distances and fees to be paid was released in 1707. A new edition was released every two years until 1859. The country already had 623 coaching inns in 1632 and the figure reached 800 at the beginning of the 18th century. A ferme générale was created for mail services in 1672, which meant that postal services started to be subject to taxation. Tax officers progressively bought private postal companies and university envoys became subjects to the ferme générale in 1719. International treaties regarding postal services were signed with neighbouring countries under Louis XIV. [4]

Birth of a national postal service

The "Black Ceres"; the first stamp issued in France. Ceres 20c noir 01.jpg
The "Black Ceres"; the first stamp issued in France.

During the French Revolution French postal services progressively became a fully public service. Directors of post offices lost their privileges in 1789 and their position became subject to universal suffrage. The ferme générale was abolished two years later and post offices started to be directly administered by the state. As a reaction to the commonplace opening of letters by the royal authorities, an oath of confidentiality became compulsory for post employees in 1790. The first French mail coach appeared in 1793 and the first telegram in the world was delivered in 1794 with the Chappe optical transmitter on the Paris-Lille line. [4]

After the Revolution, French postal services continued their modernisation. An 1801 decree reasserted the state monopoly on mail delivery, postal orders were created in 1817 and postage stamps were introduced in 1849, nine years after they were invented in the United Kingdom. A rural service was implemented in 1830 with mail delivery in rural areas every two days. The delivery became daily from 1832. [4]

France was a founding member of the General Postal Union in 1874. The organisation became the Universal Postal Union in 1879. [4]

French PTT

Post and telegraphs were united in one administration by the French government in 1879, giving birth to the P&T ("Postes et télégraphes") which later became the PTT ("Postes, télégraphes et téléphones"). A French Ministry of Post and Telegraphs was created the same year. A national savings bank was opened in 1881 and added to the services provided by the P&T. The government took a monopoly over telephone services in 1889 and placed this responsibility under the P&T. [4] The administration then became PTT and kept this name until 1959 when it became "Postes et Télécommunications", although the acronym PTT was kept.

Postal cheques were created in 1918. The first airmail flight operated in 1912 between Nancy and Lunéville and a regular airmail network was put in place in 1935 through the "Air Bleu" company. Night airmail services started in 1939 on two lines: Paris-Bordeaux-Pau and Paris-Lyon-Marseille. Postcodes were introduced in France in 1964. [4]

La Poste

A French post office in 2011 in Orry-la-Ville. Orry-la-Ville (60), la poste.jpg
A French post office in 2011 in Orry-la-Ville.

Before 2005

In the 1980s, it became clear that the French PTT could not compete anymore in a country where communication was greatly increasing. The administration suffered from a constant lack of innovation and was dependent on political will and decisions. A division between postal and telecommunication services was suggested as early as 1974 in a report from the French parliament. However, changes in the structure of the PTT were opposed by trade unions who feared that employees could lose their status as civil servants.

In 1988, under the premiership of Socialist Michel Rocard, a law was finally prepared to split the PTT and enable the government to get the services out of the public administration and to prepare for competition from private firms. Such a move was encouraged by the European Economic Community, and the United Kingdom had already separated its national telephone company from its postal services in 1981. Most of the other member states did the same in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Trade unions organised several strikes but the law was adopted in 1990. La Poste and France Télécom were officially created on 1 January 1991. The two had the status of "autonomous operators under public law". While France Telecom was privatised and floated on the stock exchange in 1997, La Poste has remained a public service.

Since its creation, the company has had to face strong competition from the Internet. As a result, it has tried to innovate and diversify its activities. In 2000, it became a webmail provider and created GeoPost, its logistics and parcel delivery subsidiary. The following year, it released its online trading platform to reinforce its online banking services. To comply with the law and EU directives, the banking activities had to form a distinct subsidiary in 2006, called La Banque postale. It received the official status of a bank while it had remained a public savings bank until then. [4]

After 2005

A contemporary pillar box in Gif-sur-Yvette. Le quartier de Chevry a Gif-sur-Yvette le 10 aout 2015 - 13.jpg
A contemporary pillar box in Gif-sur-Yvette.

La Poste lost its monopoly on postal delivery in 2005. Since then, several competing firms have started businesses in France. Most of them only deliver parcels (for example, TNT Express, DHL Express and United Parcel Service) or recorded letters, while mail delivery itself could not attract private companies. Most of the companies dealing with mail services only operate on a local scale, because they could not compete with the extremely wide network of offices that La Poste enjoyed throughout the country. [5]

La Poste became a public limited company in 2010. Although most of the Western European countries had fully privatised their postal service companies, public opinion in France was largely against such a move. A majority of French citizens feared that if La Poste becomes a private company, many post offices would close, rural areas would be neglected and stamps would be more expensive. Supporters of privatisation claimed that it would help solving the debt (€5.8 billion in 2009) and contain the rise of prices. [6]

In 2013 La Poste invested around €1 billion in renovating post offices, modernising infrastructure and reinforcing its network, along with the purchase of electric delivery vehicles. Acquisitions included more Seur franchises in Spain, a 40% stake in Indian parcel firm DTDC and a similar stake in French parcel firm Colizen. The company also bought a 66% stake in freight forwarder Tigers. Via its joint venture with Swiss Post, Asendia, the Group acquired Pitney Bowes’ international mail business operations in the UK, and a 40% stake in Irish e-commerce firm eShopWorld. [7]

In December 2016, La Poste launched a regular delivery line by drones to deliver to isolated companies in secluded areas of France. [8]  

Activities

Mail delivery

A postal TGV (service discontinued in 2015). TGV la poste 3.jpg
A postal TGV (service discontinued in 2015).
La Poste electric Renault Kangoo. Voisins-le-Bretonneux 2012 149.jpg
La Poste electric Renault Kangoo.

La Poste is by far the largest provider for mail delivery in France. It treated 15 billion messages in 2012, of which 97% implied an administration or a firm. Relations with customers only represented 55% of the company's revenue (55% for business relations ; 16% for advertisement). International mail delivery accounted for 7% of the 2012 revenue. The same year, Swiss Post and La Poste launched a joint company, Asendia, to merge their international mail activities. [9]

La Poste offers three different rates for sending mail in France: first-class, second-class and green letter. The latter was introduced in 2011 to provide an ecological alternative to the regular rates. It emits 15% less CO2 than first-class letters. In 2012, it accounted for one in five priority letters(20 percent of priority letters). [10]

Parcels and Express (GeoPost)

GeoPost grouped most parcel subsidiaries of La Poste Group. In France, the company provided two brands, Chronopost and DPD (formerly Exapaq). Worldwide, the brands are DPD, [11] Yurtiçi Kargo and Seur GeoPost.

La Poste is the second biggest provider for parcel delivery in Europe, with a 15% share of the market and a €5 billion revenue. [12]

In 2017, Geopost expanded its activities in Italy, [13] Russia, [14] Brazil [15]  and Vietnam.

Last-Mile Delivery

In 2015 La Poste invested €22 million into Stuart Delivery before it was officially launched. [16] In 2017 La Poste brought Stuart Delivery owing 100% of the shares [17] Stuart Delivery is a subsidiary of the DPD group and is operating in 86 cities across the UK, Italy, France, Spain, Poland, and Portugal. [18]

On 6 December 2021 couriers in the UK for Stuart Delivery organising with IWGB started a strike. Stuart couriers told that they started the current strike after Stuart enforced a 24% pay cut in December 2021, which saw base pay rates slashed on most deliveries from £4.50 to £3.40. [19] It is the longest gig work strike in UK history.

In the UK, according to Corporate Watch Stuart Delivery made £41 million in profits from UK deliveries in 2021, over double the £20.5 million it had made in 2020. [20] Stuart Delivery's UK accounts show an unnamed director was paid £2.2 million in 2020. [21]

Other activities

In addition to postal services, La Poste also offers banking and insurance services (with La Banque Postale) and, via Chronopost, courier services. After the government, La Poste is the second largest employer in France. It also offers webmail, providing @laposte.net email addresses and hosts approximately 1.6 million active email accounts. [22] More recently, the group has created a branch for communication counselling (Mediaprism), document exchange and archiving (Docapost), real estate (Poste Immo) and mobile telephony (La Poste Mobile, in partnership with SFR).

Corporate identity

Yellow is the main colour of the French post since the 1960s. Previously, postal vans used to be green and post boxes blue. Yellow was chosen because it is a colour that is easily seen and because it can symbolise speed and light. The logotype of La Poste was created by poster designer Guy Georget. It represents a bird, often called the "postal bird" ("l'oiseau postal"), symbolising a messenger. Its design was slightly altered by Georget in 1978. [23]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Post office</span> Customer service facility of a postal system

A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional services, which vary by country. These include providing and accepting government forms, and processing government services and fees. The chief administrator of a post office is called a postmaster.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mail</span> System for transporting documents and other small packages

The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal systems have generally been established as a government monopoly, with a fee on the article prepaid. Proof of payment is usually in the form of an adhesive postage stamp, but a postage meter is also used for bulk mailing.

Canada Post Corporation, trading as Canada Post, is a Crown corporation that functions as the primary postal operator in Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NZ Post</span> Postal service in New Zealand

NZ Post, shortened from New Zealand Post, is a state-owned enterprise responsible for providing postal service in New Zealand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Postage stamps and postal history of Russia</span> Aspect of Russian and Soviet history

This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and the modern Russian Federation.

Poste restante, also known as general delivery in North American English, is a service where the post office holds the mail until the recipient calls for it. It is a common destination for mail for people who are visiting a particular location and have no need, or no way, of having mail delivered directly to their place of residence at that time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Singapore Post</span> Singapore domestic and international postal service provider

Singapore Post Limited, commonly abbreviated as SingPost, is an associate company of Singtel and Singapore's designated Public Postal Licensee which provides domestic and international postal services.

A postal, telegraph, and telephone service is a government agency responsible for postal mail, telegraph, and telephone services. Such monopolies existed in many countries, though not in North America or Japan. Many PTTs have been partially or completely privatised in recent years. In some of these privatisations, the privatised corporation was completely renamed, such as KPN in the Netherlands, Orange S.A. in France, BT Group in the United Kingdom, Eir in the Republic of Ireland, Swisscom in Switzerland, Telstra in Australia, Spark in New Zealand, Chunghwa Telecom in Taiwan, A1 Telekom Austria Group in Austria, TDC Group in Denmark, Telia Company in Sweden and Finland, Telenor in Norway and Singtel in Singapore; whereas in others, the name of the privatised corporation has been only slightly modified, such as Telkom Indonesia in Indonesia, Telekom Malaysia in Malaysia, Deutsche Telekom in Germany, Kosovo Telecom in Kosovo, KT in South Korea, Post Luxembourg in Luxembourg and Síminn in Iceland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Post Danmark</span>

Post Danmark A/S is the national provider of postal services in Denmark. It was established as a fully state-owned stock holder's company in 1995 following political liberalization efforts. Post Danmark had taken over the mail delivery concession of its predecessor, the governmental department Postvæsenet, which was established in 1624. Post Danmark A/S was turned into a public limited company in 2002. In 2005, 22% of the company shares were sold to CVC Capital Partners, 3.5% of the company shares were partly sold to employees at a discount, partly kept in reserve for a management incentives program. In 2009, it was merged with the Swedish Posten AB to form PostNord, a joint postal service company between Denmark and Sweden.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Poste Italiane</span> Italian postal service provider

Poste Italiane is the Italian postal service provider. Besides providing postal services, Italian Post Group offers communications, postal savings products, logistics, and financial and insurance services throughout Italy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Correos</span> Spanish government post-service company

Sociedad Estatal de Correos y Telégrafos, S.A., trading as Correos, is a state-owned company responsible for providing postal service in Spain and, due to bilateral agreements, it has responsibility for mail services in Andorra alongside the French company La Poste.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russian Post</span> Russian national postal operator

Russian Post is an Aktsionernoye Obschestvo which is the national postal operator of Russia. The company is responsible for the delivery of mail in Russia, and the issuing of postage stamps. Russian Post employs about 390,000 people and has over 42,000 post offices, with its headquarters in Moscow. In 2012 the Russian Post delivered more than 2.4 billion pieces of mail and accounted for more than 54 million parcels and more than 100 million in remittances. In March 2013 a presidential decree signed by President Vladimir Putin included the Russian Post in a list of so-called strategic enterprises.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geopost</span> International parcel delivery service

Geopost is an international parcel delivery service for sorter compatible parcels based in Issy les Moulineaux, France. Until 2015 DPD stood for Dynamic Parcel Distribution. Its brands are DPD, Colissimo, Chronopost, Seur and BRT. The company is based in France and operates mainly in the express road-based market.

Pošta Srbije is the national postal service of Serbia, with the headquarters in Belgrade. Public postal service was first introduced in Serbia in 1840. The first stamp was printed in 1866. In 1874 it founded the Universal Postal Union together with 21 other countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hrvatska pošta</span>

HP-Hrvatska pošta d.d., founded in 1999, is a state-owned joint-stock company in Croatia that performs postal and payment transactions. It is the national postal operator of the Republic of Croatia.

Postal services in the United Kingdom are provided predominantly by the Royal Mail. Since 2006, the market has been fully opened to competition which has had greater success in business-to-business delivery than in ordinary letter delivery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Postage stamps and postal history of Somalia</span>

The following is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Somalia. From the late 1800s to 1960, northwestern present-day Somalia was administered as British Somaliland, while the northeastern, central and southern part of the country were concurrently administered as Italian Somaliland. In 1960, the two territories were unified as the Somali Republic.

La Poste Monaco is the company responsible for postal service in Monaco. It is a branch of Groupe La Poste (France).

The Barbados Postal Service (B.P.S.) is the national postal operator of Barbados and operates as a department within the Government of Barbados where it reports to the Ministry of Home Affairs. The Barbados Postal Service (B.P.S.) is headed by the acting Postmaster General, Sheila Greaves, who is responsible for maintaining the island’s postal services, subject to the laws of the island. In 1852, the Postal services for Barbados were reconstituted following the passage of local legislation enabling the delivery of inland postage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philippe Wahl</span> French business executive (born 1956)

Philippe Wahl is a French business executive. Having previously been a government advisor and bank executive, in September 2013 he was appointed president and chief executive officer of La Poste, the group which includes the French postal service.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Key figures". Groupe La Poste. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
  2. ↑ "Rapport Social 2019" (PDF). Le Groupe La Poste (in French). Retrieved 14 October 2020.
  3. ↑ Directive 97/67/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 December 1997 on common rules for the development of the internal market of Community postal services and the improvement of quality of service, vol. OJ L, 1998-01-21, retrieved 2019-02-14
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Instantané : Les grandes dates clés". La Poste (in French). Archived from the original on 2015-10-09. Retrieved 2015-11-28.
  5. ↑ Tridon, Céline (1 July 2011). "Courrier: peut-on se passer de La Poste?". Chef d'Entreprise (in French).
  6. ↑ Sarre, Georges (15 October 2008). "Contre la privatisation de la Poste". Libération (in French).
  7. ↑ La Poste Group profits hit by declining mail volumes
  8. ↑ "French postal service kicks off drone delivery service". The Jakarta Post. Retrieved 2017-06-06.
  9. ↑ "Le courrier, support des échanges économiques et commerciaux" (in French). Groupe La Poste.
  10. ↑ "Le lien renouvelé du courrier" (in French). La Poste.
  11. ↑ ""GeoPost et La Poste Group,"". GeoPost (Global express parcel) (in French). Archived from the original on 2013-04-04. Retrieved 2013-04-25.
  12. ↑ "Deuxième opérateur de colis-express en Europe". La Poste (in French).
  13. ↑ "Brt, arriva La Poste la Francia sbarca in forze nella logistica italiana". Repubblica.it (in Italian). 2016-12-05. Retrieved 2017-06-06.
  14. ↑ "GeoPost acquires majority stake in Russia's SPSR Express as local shipping market consolidates". East-West Digital News. 2017-01-31. Retrieved 2017-06-06.
  15. ↑ "BRAZIL > GeoPost acquires 60% stake in Brazilian logistics company JadLog". fdianalytics.com. Retrieved 2017-06-06.
  16. ↑ "Stuart, the Same-Hour Delivery Startup from Sparrow and Resto-In Founders, Raises €22M Pre-Launch". 18 November 2015.
  17. ↑ "GeoPost acquires delivery startup Stuart". 7 March 2017.
  18. ↑ "Stuart". Stuart. Retrieved 31 January 2024.
  19. ↑ "Longest continuous gig-economy strike spreads as IWGB reveals Stuart cut key worker pay 25% but gave CEO a 1000% pay rise".
  20. ↑ "Stuart Delivery: La Poste's gig economy gamble". 10 February 2022.
  21. ↑ "STUART DELIVERY Ltd filing history - Find and update company information - GOV.UK".
  22. ↑ "Troubles with webmail migration" (in French). www.arobase.org. 2007-07-27.
  23. ↑ Chronique du timbre-poste français, 2005, page 180.
  24. ↑ Member States, Caribbean Postal Union

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.