Stéphane Place / Credits: PHILIPPE LOPEZ / POOL / AFP 15:46 p.m., November 07, 2023

During a visit to the Dordogne on Tuesday, Emmanuel Macron unveiled the new face of the Marianne on the stamps. These will be available from November 13 everywhere in France. The printing house in charge of publishing the stamp produced nearly 400 million copies.

Since 1953, a printing house in Boulazac in the Dordogne has been printing nearly a billion stamps each year. On Tuesday, the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, visited the company's premises to unveil the face of the Marianne, which will appear in a few days on the new French stamps. This work is the result of an order placed a year ago by the Élysée. Indeed, like any president when he is elected or re-elected, the head of state has the right to ask for a new Marianne and therefore a new stamp.

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"Specific attributes"

This Marianne, like the previous ones, had to meet very precise specifications, which had to be respected by the artist and the engraver. "As it was the second five-year term, there was trust. So she's looking to the right and she's pretty smiling," explained Marianne project manager Didier Chabanne. "There was the ecological transition, that's why there's foliage everywhere. Universality, that's why there's a globe behind it," he adds.

"And then, the order is that it has to be a Marianne. So the Marianne has very specific attributes such as the Phrygian cap and the cockade," continued Didier Chabanne. This new stamp will be available from November 13 and will be on sale everywhere thanks to the 400 employees of the Boulazac post office who will produce 400 million copies per year.

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An "admirable" transformation

Emmanuel Macron took advantage of this trip to meet elected officials and to greet postal workers and the transformation of the company, whose letter business now represents only 16% of turnover. "We send emails, we circulate differently, we exchange differently. The letter was threatened," he told La Poste employees

"You have repositioned yourself admirably on the parcel that creates value and at the same time on the stamp," the President continued. "We are selling to new international customers and the traditional businesses have been able to pivot to successfully support this digital and technological transition."