Closure of the post office in the Beausoleil district of Nîmes: Mayor Jean-Paul Fournier protests and wants “explanations”

En février 2021, une mobilisation avait déjà été organisée devant le bureau de Poste, contre sa fermeture. Midi Libre – Midi Libre

Le bureau de Poste de ce quartier résidentiel de Nîmes sera fermé et remplacé le 18 mars prochain par "deux relais commerçants". Le groupe La Poste défend cette position.

In June 2023, the announcement of the continued opening of the Gambetta post office, made by the mayor of Nîmes Jean-Paul Fournier, was greeted with relief by the members of the Defense Committee of the Gard public postal service. A decision which had been officially confirmed by the regional management of La Poste.

A decision which weakens the presence of public postal services

Las. After the battle of Gambetta, will it be necessary to fight that of Beausoleil for the defense of public service ? "The departmental postal presence commission, on which many local elected officials sit, has ratified the principle of an evolution of the activity of the La Poste group in the Beausoleil district. This decision was notified to me by mail at the beginning of the week. The post office will be closed and replaced by two merchant relays ", Jean-Paul Fournier announced this Tuesday, February 13. Who wanted to express his very strong opposition: "I regret this decision which weakens the presence of public postal services in this sector of the city", estimates the first councilor.

A drop in attendance “of the order of -38%”, justifies La Poste

"In Gard as everywhere in France, La Poste is evolving its territorial presence in order to best meet the needs of the population. La Poste is indeed adapting its organizations to changing lifestyles and uses, in a context of constant decline in traffic, of the order of 6% on average per year nationally. This drop in attendance in Nîmes is of the order of – 38% between 2019 and 2022. " 
Faced with the planned closure of the Beausoleil office, the La Poste group would like to clarify that this location will, from March 18, be transformed into La Poste Relais. Thus, local customers will be able to carry out their postal operations within two local businesses over extended time slots. Arguing that "these developments do not call into question the postal presence in the city" , the Occitanie communications center specifies that with the opening of these La Poste Relais, La Poste is thus strengthening the establishment of its network in the city of Nîmes, while adapting its presence to strengthen the accessibility of its service offering: 8 post offices, 6 La Poste Relais, 25 Pick UP relays, 19 cash dispensers, 87 mailboxes and 44 tobacconists listed by the federation of tobacconists of Gard&quot ;. On the employment side, "all postal workers at La Poste Nîmes Beausoleil will find a place in the future deployed organization", concludes the Management.

In February 2021, already, a demonstration was organized in front of what represented the last public service offering direct reception of users in the neighborhood, while La Poste had already #39;a partial closure of the place. Three years later, the curtain risks falling definitively.

A meeting with La Poste managers

Recalling that he had won his case for the Gambetta office, Mayor Jean-Paul Fournier announced that he wanted to meet the managers of the La Poste group "in order to obtain explanations for this decision and demonstrate my disapproval". "While I can understand that La Poste is restructuring, I find it difficult to accept that this is done to the detriment of the residents of a district of Nîmes where more than 6,000 residents live,< /em> deplores the chosen one. I thus denounce, once again, the accounting choices of the postal service."