La Poste is a

postal service 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 syst ...

company in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, operating in

Metropolitan France Metropolitan France (french: France métropolitaine or ''la Métropole''), also known as European France (french: Territoire européen de la France) is the area of France which is geographically in Europe. This collective name for the European ...

, the five French overseas departments and regions and the

overseas collectivity The French overseas collectivities (''collectivité d'outre-mer'' or ''COM'') are first-order administrative divisions of France, like the French regions, but have a semi-autonomous status. The COMs include some former French overseas colonies ...

Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Pierre and Miquelon (), officially the Territorial Collectivity of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon (french: link=no, Collectivité territoriale de Saint-Pierre et Miquelon ), is a self-governing territorial overseas collectivity of France in t ...

. Under a bilateral agreements, La Poste also has responsibility for mail services in

Monaco Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...

through La Poste Monaco and in

Andorra , image_flag = Flag of Andorra.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Andorra.svg , symbol_type = Coat of arms , national_motto = la, Virtus Unita Fortior, label=none (Latin)"United virtue is stro ...

alongside the Spanish company

Correos Sociedad Estatal de Correos y Telégrafos, S.A., trading as Correos (literally "Mails"), is a state-owned company responsible for providing postal service in Spain and, due to bilateral agreements, it has responsibility for mail services in An ...

. The company was created in 1991 following the split of the French PTT, a

government department Ministry or department (also less commonly used secretariat, office, or directorate) are designations used by first-level executive bodies in the machinery of governments that manage a specific sector of public administration." Энцикло� ...

responsible for mail,

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

and

telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...

services in France. The PTT, founded in 1879, was then divided between La Poste, which became responsible for postal service, and

France Télécom Orange S.A. (), formerly France Télécom S.A. (stylized as france telecom) is a French multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications corporation. It has 266 million customers worldwide and employs 89,000 people in France, and 5 ...

(nowadays Orange) for the telecommunication services. France Télécom was immediately privatised but La Poste has remained a public company. However, in 1997

EU directive The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been ...

97/67/EC required member states to "fully open the postal sector to competition", 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 a parent company of the Groupe La Poste, which also comprises a bank and insurance company ( La Banque postale), a logistics service company (Geopost) and a mobile network operator (La Poste Mobile). Although its postal activities are declining because of the development of the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...

, 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.

History

Kingdom of France

During the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

, postal delivery in France was not organised by the state and was provided by private enterprise. University envoys dominated the market from the 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. The first set fees appeared in 1627 for letters sent to

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectu ...

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of ...

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and fr ...

and

Dijon Dijon (, , ) (dated) * it, Digione * la, Diviō or * lmo, Digion is the prefecture of the Côte-d'Or department and of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in northeastern France. the commune had a population of 156,920. The earlie ...

. 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 Louis XIV (Louis Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was List of French monarchs, King of France from 14 May 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the Li ...

Birth of a national postal service

During the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

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 Universal suffrage (also called universal franchise, general suffrage, and common suffrage of the common man) gives the right to vote to all adult citizens, regardless of wealth, income, gender, social status, race, ethnicity, or political sta ...

. The ''ferme générale'' was abolished two years later and post offices started to be directly administered by the state. As a reaction to 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 Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

in the world was delivered in 1794 with the Chappe optical transmitter on the

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

Lille Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the No ...

line. 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 stamp A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the f ...

s were introduced in 1849, nine years after they were invented in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

. A rural service was implemented in 1830 with a mail delivery in rural areas every two days. The delivery became daily from 1832. France was a founding member of the General Postal Union in 1874. The organisation became the

Universal Postal Union The Universal Postal Union (UPU, french: link=no, Union postale universelle), established by the Treaty of Bern of 1874, is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that coordinates postal policies among member nations, in addition to ...

in 1879.

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 opened in 1881 and was 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. 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 Lunéville ( ; German, obsolete: ''Lünstadt'' ) is a commune in the northeastern French department of Meurthe-et-Moselle. It is a subprefecture of the department and lies on the river Meurthe at its confluence with the Vezouze. History L ...

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:

- Pau and

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fra ...

. Postcodes were introduced in France in 1964. File:LogoPTTLille.jpg, Logo of the French PTT on a former post office in

. File:Auxerre - La Poste 2.jpg, A PTT sign in

Auxerre Auxerre ( , ) is the capital of the Yonne department and the fourth-largest city in Burgundy. Auxerre's population today is about 35,000; the urban area (''aire d'attraction'') comprises roughly 113,000 inhabitants. Residents of Auxerre are r ...

. File:Panneau PTT.JPG, A 1950s PTT road sign in Marthon. File:1922 Rouge France 30c Yv160.jpg, A 1922 stamp. File:Voiture postale à l'alcool de 1901.jpg, A mail van in 1901. File:2cv la poste.jpg, A Citroën 2CV vehicle used by PTT. File:CITROEN TYPE H POSTAL.jpg, A Citroën H Van used by the PTT. File:La Poste TPO.jpg, Travelling post office at Strasbourg

La Poste

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 union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...

s who feared that employees could lose their status of

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

s. In 1988, under the premiership of

Socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

Michel Rocard, a law was finally prepared to split the PTT. The aim of the government was to get the services out of the public administration and to prepare competition from private firms. Such a move was encouraged by the

European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lis ...

, and the

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

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

. As a result, it has tried to innovate and diversify its activities. In 2000, it became a

webmail Webmail (or web-based email) is an email service that can be accessed using a standard web browser. It contrasts with email service accessible through a specialised email client software. Examples of webmail providers are 1&1 Ionos, AOL Mail, ...

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

s, 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.

After 2005

La Poste lost its monopoly on postal delivery in 2005. Since then, several competing firms have started business in France. Most of them only deliver parcels (for example, TNT Express, DHL Express and

United Parcel Service United Parcel Service (UPS, stylized as ups) is an American multinational shipping & receiving and supply chain management company founded in 1907. Originally known as the American Messenger Company specializing in telegraphs, UPS has grown t ...

) or recorded letters, while mail delivery itself has yet to attract private companies. Most of the companies dealing with mail services only operate on a local scale, because they cannot compete with the extremely wide network of offices La Poste enjoys throughout the country. La Poste became a

public limited company A public limited company (legally abbreviated to PLC or plc) is a type of public company under United Kingdom company law, some Commonwealth jurisdictions, and the Republic of Ireland. It is a limited liability company whose shares may be fr ...

in 2010. Although most of the Western European countries have fully privatised their postal service companies, public opinion in France is largely against such a move. A majority of French citizens fear 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 claim that it would help solving the debt (€5.8 billion in 2009) and contain the rise of prices. 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 Desk to Desk Courier & Cargo (also known as DTDC or DTDC Express Limited) is an Indian courier delivery services company, headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka. DTDC handles 12 million shipments every month. History In 2012, it acquired a 52 pe ...

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

Activities

Mail delivery

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 to customer 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. 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 than first-class letters. In 2012, it accounted for one in five priority letters.(20 percent of priority letters).

Parcels and Express (GeoPost)

GeoPost groups most parcel subsidiaries of La Poste Group. In France, the company provides two brands,

Chronopost Chronopost International, a member of the La Poste group, provides express shipping and delivery service both domestically (in France) and internationally. Domestic services comprise mostly next-day services, with some variation depending on ...

and DPD (formerly ''Exapaq''). Worldwide, the brands are DPD, 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. In 2017, Geopost expands its activities in Italy, Russia, Brazil and Vietnam.

Last-Mile Delivery

In 2015 La Poste invested €22 million into Stuart Delivery before it was officially launched. In 2017 La Poste brought Stuart Delivery owing 100% of the shares Stuart Delivery is a subsidiary of the DPD group and is operating in 86 cities across the UK, Italy, France, Spain, Poland, and Portugal. On 6 December 2021 couriers in the UK for Stuart Delivery organising with IWGB started a strike. Stuart couriers say 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. It is the longest gig work strike in UK history. In the UK, according to

Corporate Watch Corporate Watch (The Corporate Watch Co-Operative Ltd.) is a research group based in the UK. It describes itself as a "research group that helps people stand up against corporations and capitalism." And as a "not-for-profit co-operative providing c ...

Stuart Delivery made £41 million in profits from UK deliveries in 2021, over double the £20.5 million it had made in 2020. Stuart Delivery's UK accounts show an unnamed director was paid £2.2 million in 2020.

Other activities

In addition to postal services, La Poste also offers banking and insurance services (with La Banque Postale) and, via

, 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. 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 SFR (; ''Société française du radiotéléphone'', ) is a French telecommunications company. As of December 2015, it had 21.9 million customers in Metropolitan France for mobile services, and provided 6.35 million households with high-spee ...

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. File:Logo ptt 1960.jpg, The 1960 bird. File:Logo ptt 1978.jpg, Current design.

References

External links

La Poste website

Postal Services in France - at ''Discover France'' (English)

French Post Boxes through the ages. (English)
{{authority control

Postal system of France Government-owned companies of France Philately of France Philately of Monaco