In total, 60.69% of shareholders approved Alexandre Bompard's remuneration in 2022, estimated at more than 9 million euros by the CGT - a figure disputed by the group - and 56.75% for the 2023 remuneration.

This is a fairly massive protest, and rare within large groups, even if the remuneration has been approved.

Carrefour argues that the remuneration of its CEO includes elements of so-called "long-term" remuneration, conditional on the achievement of certain objectives.

In addition, the early renewal of the CEO's mandate until 2026, announced at the end of March to "align" him with the distributor's strategic plan, presented last November, was ratified but nearly 20% of shareholders voted against.

"Unacceptable" remuneration for the CGT

Previously, the group's unions, including the CFDT and the CGT, had criticized Mr. Bompard's remuneration by comparing it with the social balance sheet of the leader, who arrived at the helm of Carrefour in 2017.

According to Carrefour, Alexandre Bompard's remuneration is divided into a fixed part (1.5 million euros), a variable part (up to twice the fixed part) and a long-term remuneration (up to "60% of the maximum total remuneration").

A remuneration "unacceptable, even indecent", castigated the CGT, which had organized a rally in front of the doors of the general assembly, organized in small Parisian crown, to "denounce the carnivorous methods" of the group "vis-à-vis the workers".

"It is difficult to explain this remuneration to employees especially with regard to the social policy of the company, the reduction of staff or the passage of stores into lease-management," said AFP Sylvain Macé, CFDT delegate within the group.

The group's unions denounce in this transition from stores to lease-management, a form of franchise system in which Carrefour remains the owner of the business, a low-noise social breakdown. The CFDT estimates that Carrefour's workforce has shrunk by 30,000 people since 2018, from 115,000 to 85,000.

In front of his shareholders, Alexandre Bompard responded by ensuring that at the time of his arrival at the head of the group, "all the experts in the sector" said that the hypermarket format "was dead". Since then, Carrefour "has not closed any hypermarket while other players have," he pleaded, saying that "each of the hypermarkets leased has progressed since then".

Alexandre Bompard plans to rely more and more on a franchise store operating model.

Indirect emissions

Carrefour has also been ordered by small shareholders, claiming to weigh a total of 1.1% of the capital, to clarify the calculation of its greenhouse gas emissions.

The board of directors of Carrefour, criticized in recent months by specialized associations on the sincerity of its commitments in this area, submitted to the vote of its shareholders a more precise communication of the levers used to reduce its indirect emissions of greenhouse gases, which was very widely endorsed, at 93%.

Carrefour CEO Alexandre Bompard inaugurates a new hypermarket in Ra'anana, Israel, May 9, 2023 © JACK GUEZ / AFP/Archives

At the podium, the Executive Director of Engagement, Carine Kraus, detailed the four levers of action of the group to reduce by 29% by 2030 its indirect emissions (which constitute almost all total emissions). In particular, the group intends to rely on the efforts of its suppliers and develop plant-based food.

Finally, the management was questioned by a shareholder on the recent arrival of the distributor in Israel via a partnership with the Israeli group Electra Consumer Products and its subsidiary Yenot Bitan, likely in his eyes to make the company "complicit" in a "policy of illegal colonization of the Palestinian territories".

Laurent Vallée, general secretary of the group, replied that "no Carrefour store will be present in the territories mentioned", and that "there is no complicity, we ensure on this point to prevent any risk" in this matter.

© 2023 AFP