The liberalisation of the postal sector in Europe

For the editorialist Gilles Senges, complete liberalisation of the postal sector is "a little time-bomb, social and political, unless it is accompanied step by step by adequate safety measures. ... La Poste, France's number 2 employer after the State with 300,000 employees (of which 60,000 are civil servants) is not yet ready to confront the arrival of other big European operators, who are brandishing profit margins of 10% to 12%, while its own barely reaches 3,5%. ... Above all, the question of universal service obligations and their financing has not been treated yet, Brussels being happy to just point out a few possibilities. La Poste, which curiously never calculated the cost of its public service missions, fears, quite rightly, that exterior operators will only commit themselves to profit-making markets."

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