Major distributors in Martinique, “scapegoats” or “profiteers” of the high cost of living ?

Lopez/dpa

There is nothing left of the Carrefour Market in Rivière-Salée, a working-class town in Martinique, an island in the Antilles where large-scale distribution is seen as a scarecrow, in the midst of a social movement against the high cost of living: the Food costs 40% more than in mainland France.

First there is the smell of burning, which lingers for a week after the fire. Then, rushing into the darkness, through tangled crazy metal, charred rays, a ripped open roof, a grayish magma that seems to have absorbed what escaped the pillage.

In recent weeks, supermarkets and hypermarkets have been among the favorite targets of a mobilization marked by sudden outbreaks of violence.

Mass distribution is keeping its head down. It is rather active behind the scenes, like the agreement reached Wednesday with the State at the cost of concessions that will push it to reduce its margins to apply a 20% reduction at the checkout, on average.

Sébastien Daire has decided to break the code of silence, so as to no longer be seen as the local “devil”. The owner of eight Carrefour Market stores on the island saw two of them go up in smoke last week, including the one in Rivière-Salée, on the night of October 10 to 11. Result: 15 million euros in damage, “without operating losses”, a building “good for razing” and around fifty employees unemployed for this store alone.

– Reduce margins –

“The high cost of living is a real issue, no one denies it. Now we have to tackle the real causes and not find a scapegoat,” chokes the manager, wading through a section of strong alcohol.

“We are at the end of the chain, the last place where people take out their credit card, their wallet,” Sébastien Daire, for whom the extra cost of food in Martinique is mainly explained by the transport of goods.

This is what he argued on Wednesday, like the rest of the large-scale distribution, during the last round of negotiations which led to an agreement, signed between the State, the Territorial Community of Martinique and local stakeholders, distributors and wholesalers in particular.

It is the “accumulation” of “collective efforts” contained in this agreement, which is due to come into force in January 2025, that will make it possible to lower prices on 54 families of the most common products (pasta, butter, milk, etc.), the prefect of Martinique boasted.

Large-scale distribution, in particular, has made a series of commitments, starting with the fact of “passing on in full the cost savings generated” by the agreement.

According to the terms of the document, the brands will also have to “reduce margins (…) through a freeze on margin rates”.

– “Asphyxiated” –

“A historic effort has been demanded of distributors” while “we are the operator with the least room for maneuver in the entire supply chain”, worries Sébastien Daire, a franchisee whose business is “in danger”.

“We are going to be suffocated. A distributor, when things are going well, has a 1% profit compared to its turnover”, explains the man who says he is “condemned to lose money” because of the “structural” cost of transport to the island, where a “bottle has tripled in price upon arrival on Martinique soil, before we have even made a margin”.

So many arguments that did not move the president of the Territorial Collectivity of Martinique, Serge Letchimy, who opened the last part of the negotiations with a diatribe against the “profiteering on food” among local players, visibly annoying distributors, none of whom, with the exception of Mr. Daire, responded to AFP's requests.

The collective behind the protest movement, the RPPRAC, doubts the sector's sincerity in its promise to pass on prices.

“How do we ensure that it will really go down? ? There is no guarantee,” stressed Gwladys Roger, one of the leaders of the movement, who did not sign the agreement partly for this reason.

According to the text, biannual checks are planned by the State to monitor “prices and (the) margins”.

It will be several semesters before Sébastien Daire's stores reopen. In the desolate Rivière-Salée, only one thing remained intact, as if surprised not to be covered in dust: the payment terminal at the checkout.

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