• Between 2015 and 2020, nearly 2,000 post offices closed throughout France.

  • For municipalities that so wish, it is possible for them to create “municipal postal agencies”.

  • Postal services are provided by municipal agents, in municipal premises.

Skill transfer.

Everyone is not housed in the same boat in the territorial network of the Post Office, even if, for several years, the general trend has been rather towards the closing of offices.

Between 2015 and 2020, there are indeed nearly 2,000 offices that have lowered the curtain almost everywhere in France according to INSEE.

To try to compensate for the disappearance of this public service, some cities have decided to create municipal postal agencies.

This is the case of Villeneuve d'Ascq, in the North.

If it is still quite easy to find a post office, or even several, in the metropolises, the task is more difficult, if not impossible, in towns of more modest size.

Inevitably, when France has 7,500 post offices for 36,000 municipalities, the accounts are not good Kevin.

However, Villeneuve d'Ascq, near Lille, is not what can be described as a "small town" with its 62,000 inhabitants.

Moreover, the Post office still has 6 offices in Villeneuve d'Ascq, not counting the various "relays".

A number probably too high for the company, which plans to close two by the end of the first quarter of 2023.

Drop in office traffic

Since 2005, municipalities deprived of post offices can indeed sign an agreement with the Post Office to create municipal postal agencies.

Basically, the missions concerning the postal services are carried out there by municipal staff in municipal premises.

The agreement provides that the training of agents, part of their salary and the equipment are paid for by the Post Office.

A win-win deal?


"The main argument put forward by the Post Office is the drop in attendance at the offices concerned", explains Jean-Baptiste Legrand, Deputy Director General (DGA) of the services in charge of citizen life in Villeneuve d'Ascq.

A notion of profitability, contrary to that of public service which does not please the municipality, which cannot “resign itself to depriving its citizens of a postal service of proximity”.

And if, despite the insistence of elected officials, the Post Office has confirmed the closure of the two offices, it nevertheless offers an alternative.

On paper, that sounds pretty good, but is the deal really a win-win?

“The municipal agencies only offer the mail service.

For banking or commercial services, customers will have to go to a real post office, ”underlines the DGA.

The package allocated by the Post Office for each municipal agency, of 1,074 euros gross, does not allow the municipality to second a full-time agent either.

"In addition to the agent's salary, this also induces costs, such as electricity, and finding an office," adds Jean-Baptiste Legrand.

Concretely, for the inhabitants of these two districts of Villeneuve d'Ascq, the change of habit will not be insurmountable.

From the end of March 2023, they will simply have to go to their local town hall to post their mail, weigh their parcels or buy their stamps.

"It may even be that customers gain in terms of time amplitude", slips the DGA.

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  • Company

  • Hauts-de-France

  • The post office

  • City hall

  • Public service