(AFP) - With fewer people sending each other letters, France's post office will change its strategic plan for the next ten years, looking to significantly increase its home meal delivery business - aimed in particular at elderly people - and to continue to deliver parcels.
"We are committed to our public service missions," Philippe Wahl, the CEO of France's postal service, La Poste, told the French Senate on Wednesday, but "[we] are under pressure".
Wahl said letter and parcel deliveries dropped from 70 percent of France's post office business in 1990 to just 15 percent by the end of 2024, as letters have been replaced by e-mails and most invoices are now digital.
The steady decline over the last ten years has left a €6 billion gap in the group's business.
Five million meals in 2023
The challenge is to ensure that La Poste's 65,000 employees "continue to serve the country, even when there are no more letters", said Wahl, adding that La Poste is making a "strategic gamble" with parcel and meal delivery, which it "is in the process of winning".
With its several parcel delivery services - Colissimo, Chronopost and DPD - La Poste is "by far" the biggest player in the French domestic parcel delivery market.
France's post office also carries out ten percent of food deliveries nationwide.
Working with community centres, hospitals and caterers, drivers bring more than 15,000 meals per day to mostly elderly people, Wahl said. La Poste delivered 5 million meals last year and hopes to double that figure in 2024.
By 2035 Wahl predicted that "food deliveries will be the top activity for postal workers".
Mobile offices in rural areas
Meanwhile, increasing numbers of post offices are closing, much to the dismay of the local populations they serve.
There are only 7,000 post offices left in France, compared with 14,000 at the end of the 1990s.
For 40 percent of village post offices, fewer than five customers turn up a day.
Wahl said La Poste is consulting with local mayors on the issue, and said the group planned to launch "yellow lorries", or mobile multiservice offices, in rural areas, which should be on the road by the end of April.