A "delusional" distribution and "serious dysfunctions".
Words are not too strong within the opposition to denounce the conditions in which the first round of the regional elections took place.
On social networks, several elected officials complained of incidents in the distribution of electoral envelopes, of which a certain number of voters - difficult to quantify - were deprived.
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The matter ended up being taken seriously within the executive. This Monday morning, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin "banged his fist on the table" in front of the representatives of La Poste and the company Adrexo, responsible for ensuring the proper distribution of electoral propaganda. Six days before the second round, he reminded them that weighs on them an "obligation of result". And it is not excluded that sanctions will be decided at the end of the Sunday ballot. According to a government source, Gérald Darmanin reserves the right after the second round to question the market between the State and Adrexo and, if necessary, to re-launch a call for tenders for the distribution of electoral material for the next presidential election.
Cédric Perrin, LR senator from the Territoire de Belfort, cannot imagine for a moment that the situation will improve for the second round.
“It's a disaster for Adrexo,” he laments.
We are going to ask this company to distribute in two days what it was unable to do in one month, ”he laments.
On May 25, the elected official discovered in the small town of Hérimoncourt, on the edge of a forest, dozens of blue envelopes.
These were electoral folds.
“Some were burned, we cannot even estimate the number of envelopes destroyed.
"
The Interior Ministry concedes "serious dysfunctions"
Told him to have received many testimonies, elected officials and administrators, surprised not to have received the documents. “Mail delivery is a profession,” he continues. Adrexo's job is print without an address. It is not the same as sending a letter to an individual in their mailbox. This requires sorting and managing distribution well. There, we found ourselves in a situation where temporary workers were overwhelmed. "
Questioned on this subject, the services of Gerald Darmanin were not able to give us an estimate of the extent of the dysfunctions.
"We do not have the number of exhaustive incidents which would have occurred in the routing of propaganda, but as soon as they were reported, explanations were requested from the contract holders for an immediate application of corrective measures, in particular with a view to of the second round ”, we are told.
In a letter addressed to all the prefects before the first round, which Le Parisien was able to consult, the Secretary General of the Ministry of the Interior Jean-Benoît Albertini spoke all the same of “major dysfunctions” observed in recent weeks, and “all especially in recent days from the new provider Adrexo ”.
I reminded them of the obligation of results which bound them and asked to guarantee that such dysfunctions do not recur next Sunday.
All the lessons of the mistakes made will be learned the day after the second round of these elections.
https://t.co/WbKQ0oYtHd
- Gérald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) June 21, 2021
Last December, as part of a public contract, the company Adrexo, belonging to the Hopps group, was responsible for the delivery of electoral envelopes for the next four years.
Concretely, Adrexo took care of the distribution of propaganda in seven French regions, La Poste taking care of the rest of the territory.
A market that fell at the peak for a company in great difficulty, placed under ad hoc mandate in 2016 and about which the services of Bercy were seized, within the framework of the Interministerial Committee for Industrial Restructuring (Ciri), in charge of help companies in difficulty.
Emmanuel Macron was then the responsible minister.
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In recent years, the leaders of Hopps had made a specialty of buying companies in difficulty for a symbolic euro.
But in recent times, it is also the losses that have accumulated.
To make matters worse, the company was indirectly victimized in April of a ransomware-type cyberattack targeting Parcel Private, a company in the same group.
The badges of the canteen and the payroll service were notably paralyzed.
"We were off the mark"
At Adrexo, "Operation Propaganda", as it was called internally, was a "question of survival", confides Fabienne Terenzani, South union representative within the company. “We are under the control of Ciri, the company benefits from a moratorium on tax and social charges. Obviously the public market is a real breath of fresh air. The company is now under pressure.
Contacted several times, she did not wish to respond to our requests, simply referring us to a press release.
And if its leader Frédéric Pons explains in promotional documents that Emmanuel Macron is one of the people who “deeply impacted” his life, just like his parents and Jeff Bezos (Amazon has taken shares in Private Colis, also owned by the group Hopps), the Ministry of the Interior would like to point out that the public contract was “awarded on the basis of a price criterion and technical criteria verifying the adequacy of the means for the service”.
Regional: in Ronchin, electoral leaflets found in nature https://t.co/eEtuvMKjpM pic.twitter.com/TWoutIATw5
- The Voice of the North (@lavoixdunord) June 15, 2021
The thousands of distributors who work for Adrexo are now under pressure. "In four days, we will have to distribute what was distributed in a month for the first round," continues the union representative. To achieve this, the company has decided to use distributors working in regions not affected by deliveries of election letters. "We will pay them the train and hotel nights to have more people available," we are told.
In its press release, Adrexo specifies that 20,000 employees are working to achieve this. This means that the company will again call on many temporary workers. Adrexo has in fact signed a partnership with the temporary agency Gojob, through which, for example, it had launched at the end of April a recruitment campaign of more than 560 temporary workers for the regions in Bourgogne-Franche. -County. On average, distributors can expect to earn between 300 and 600 euros per month, we are told internally. They work an average of 70 hours per month.
“For the first round, there was an organization problem. We were missing the point, ”says Fabienne Terenzani. The overwhelming majority of distributors were of goodwill, but training was insufficient. There was no tutoring in the field, for example ”. Cédric Perrin is skeptical about the company's ability to achieve its objective. In the Territory of Belfort, the senator must print the ballots before Monday evening. “They will then be sent to Normandy, to be sorted and new ones sent to my department. At best, they will arrive on Thursday. It seems very tight to me… ”