La Poste is a postal service company in France, operating in Metropolitan France, the five French overseas departments and regions and the overseas collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon. Under bilateral agreements, La Poste also has responsibility for mail services in Monaco through La Poste Monaco and in Andorra alongside the Spanish company Correos.
The company was created in 1991 following the split of the French PTT, a government department responsible for mail, telegraph and telephone services in France. The PTT, founded in 1879, was then divided between La Poste, which became responsible for postal service, and France Télécom (nowadays Orange) for the telecommunication services. France Télécom was immediately privatised but La Poste has remained a public company. However, in 1997 EU directive 97/67/EC required member states to "fully open the postal sector to competition",[4] with the result that the French government allowed private postal service companies in 2005 and transformed La Poste into a public-owned company limited by shares in 2010.
La Poste is part of the Groupe La Poste, which also comprises a bank and insurance company (La Banque Postale), a logistics service company (Geopost) and a mobile network operator (La Poste Mobile). Although its postal activities are declining because of the development of the Internet, they still represented half of the company's income. Other activities, such as parcel delivery and banking, are on the rise. The two represented respectively a quarter of the company's income in 2017.[2]
History
Kingdom of France
During the Middle Ages, postal delivery in France was not organised by the state and was provided by private enterprise. University envoys dominated the market from 13th century onwards. In 1477, King Louis XI created coaching inns to deliver his own letters. These inns were for temporary use and usually led to battlefields. In 1576, royal mail delivery was further improved with the creation of the office of royal envoy. Royal envoys were allowed to provide services to private individuals. They prefigured modern postal services and their existence led to the appearance of the first post offices at the end of the 16th century.[5]
The first set of fees appeared in 1627 for letters sent to Bordeaux, Lyon, Toulouse and Dijon. As with the rest of Europe, stamps did not exist in France at that time and mail was paid for by the recipient. The first map of post roads was published in 1632 and a book compiling lists of roads and inns including distances and fees to be paid was released in 1707. A new edition was released every two years until 1859. The country already had 623 coaching inns in 1632 and the figure reached 800 at the beginning of the 18th century. A ferme générale was created for mail services in 1672, which meant that postal services started to be subject to taxation. Tax officers progressively bought private postal companies and university envoys became subjects to the ferme générale in 1719.
Activities
Mail delivery
La Poste is by far the largest provider for mail delivery in France. It treated 15 billion messages in 2012, of which 97% implied an administration or a firm. Relations with customers only represented 55% of the company's revenue (55% for business relations; 16% for advertisement). International mail delivery accounted for 7% of the 2012 revenue. The same year, Swiss Post and La Poste launched a joint company, Asendia, to merge their international mail activities.[14]
La Poste offers three different rates for sending mail in France: first-class, second-class and green letter. The latter was introduced in 2011 to provide an ecological alternative to the regular rates. It emits 15% less than first-class letters. In 2012, it accounted for one in five priority letters (20 percent of priority letters).[15]
Parcels and express (GeoPost)
La Poste directly provides parcel service under the brand name Colissimo; however, Groupe La Poste also operates other subsidiaries providing express parcel delivery.
Corporate identity
Yellow is the main colour of the French post since the 1960s. Previously, postal vans used to be green and post boxes blue. Yellow was chosen because it is a colour that is easily seen and because it can symbolise speed and light. The logotype of La Poste was created by poster designer Guy Georget. It represents a bird, often called the "postal bird" ("l'oiseau postal"), symbolising a messenger. Its design was slightly altered by Georget in 1978.[29]
See also
- Caribbean Postal Union[30]
- Dirigisme
- Evolution of stamp prices in France
- List of national postal services
Further reading
- Le Roux, Muriel, et al. eds. A Concise History of the French Post Office: From Its Origins to the Present Time (2018),
External links
References
- La Poste à travers le temps - Le Groupe La Poste Le Groupe La Poste, retrieved 16 April 2018^
- Key figures Groupe La Poste, retrieved 18 March 2022^
- Rapport Social 2019 Le Groupe La Poste, retrieved 14 October 2020