The public group will review the range of basic postal services on January 1, 2023, to save money and try to follow the evolution of uses, upset by the rise of electronic messaging and online payments.
For the boss of the Service-Mail-Parcels branch, Philippe Dorge, it is a question of "consolidating the future of mail" and "sustaining the universal postal service", which notably guarantees delivery six days a week and affordable prices for the most common shipments.
Concretely, the red stamp of the "priority letter", which allows a letter to be franked for delivery the next day (on D 1), will give way to a new hybrid formula, called "e-Lettre rouge", dematerialized, for shipping really urgent shipments.
It will be necessary to send a document, up to three sheets, before 8:00 p.m. on the laposte.fr site, from a post office, on an automaton or with the help of a postman. The document will be printed near the addressee, put in an envelope -- bearing a red stamp image -- and distributed the next day.
"In complete confidentiality", assures Mr. Dorge to AFP.
This service will cost 1.49 euros, compared to 1.43 euros for the current red stamp.
"The volumes of J 1 have been divided by 14 since 2008", with currently 300 million items out of the 7 billion letters sent in the year by La Poste (twice less than in 2013), explains Mr. Dorge . This is starting to be expensive and to weigh on the environment since the group uses less and less full planes, trucks and vans.
"Customers have other expectations today," insists the manager, whose services interviewed 22,000 customers. “There is less need for speed.”
- Turquoise letter -
"Anyway it has become too expensive, and it never happens the next day," reacted Antoine, a grumpy Parisian executive met in front of the capital's central post office, rue du Louvre.
For Marie Janson, busy with her correspondence in the post office, red was a question of status. "It allows you to show respect to your correspondents. I would never put a green stamp", cheaper, she says.
"It's a shame, we can no longer post an urgent check", notes Vincent Petit, a fifty-year-old who, on reflection, has not bought a red stamp for ages.
For this type of important shipment requiring traceability, La Poste will offer a "Lettre turquoise services plus", much more expensive, distributed two days later (on D 2), with follow-up notifications and flat-rate compensation in the event of a significant delay. . It will be offered from 2.95 euros, depending on the weight.
Another notable change on January 1, 2023: mail sent with a green stamp, the most used for daily mailings, will be slower, delivered on D 3 and no longer on D 2.
Its price will remain unchanged, at 1.16 euros for shipments up to 20 grams. This stamp will also be offered next year in digital form, with an eight-character alphanumeric code, sold online at the same price, which you just need to copy onto the envelope.
Each French household will spend an average of around 37 euros on postal products this year; against 38 euros in 2021, according to the public group.
This development, validated by the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Communications, Posts and Press Distribution (Arcep), aims to reduce the deficit of the universal postal service, a legal obligation which costs more than one billion euros. to the public group. The State must take 500 million to its charge.
La Poste also intends to reduce its CO2 emissions for mail transport by 25% by 2030 compared to the current situation, by filling its trucks better and no longer using planes in France (from next year). It should then carry 3 to 4 billion folds, according to Mr. Dorge.
