It is a shop located in a popular district of Toulon (Var), around the port and the Mayol, the rugby stadium. A Carrefour hypermarket like there are hundreds in France. At the checkout, on the other side of the treadmill, mostly women who have been doing it for months, powerless, to their customers’ anguish in the face of rising prices. Chistelle, Evelyne, Ouafa or Céline agreed to testify about their daily life on the eve of a new day of strikes and wage increases on Thursday 27 October.
Some have more than twenty years of experience in Carrefour. They know this profession by heart. Yet now they fear the moment when they have to deliver the receipt to the customer. “There is no customer who ultimately does not pay attention to what it costs them. ‘And why do I have to pay so much? What does it cost? describes Christelle, a cashier in this supermarket for four years.
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Evelyne, who worked at Carrefour for ten years, plays a recurring dialogue: “‘You were wrong! Look at the screen, you were wrong’. But no, not at all, unfortunately we were not wrong”. “So we give them more or less details of the ticket, continues Christelle. But often they leave their objects with us because they don’t have enough “. Like this customer who eventually gave up his batch of baguettes: “How stupid, bread. Ten baguettes for five euros while the gentleman had seen it for 4 euros. He didn’t take it. It’s only one euro, but one euro is a lot now.”
Evelyne and her colleagues assure us that no one is safe from a nasty surprise. “We have as many grandparents, grandmothers, young people, students, mothers … It is the whole of society, sums up Evelyn. We see it every day “. Cashiers are also witnesses of the changes that occur in the carts. Some items are now over-represented such as pasta, rice, and potatoes “first price eggs”, listen to Evelyne. When other products have suddenly disappeared like ground beef “that exploded” in flight, observe, or the fish that “sold a lot”. “Eating five fruits and vegetables a day is more possible.”
According to these cashiers, customers sometimes complain violently about the rising cost of living. Flights are also on the rise. Céline Arnaud, CGT manager, has been working at Carrefour for more than twenty years and has noticed a completely new phenomenon: “We have people eating in the store. There are picnics taking place. We go to the department and find baguettes, sausages that have been cut and people eat in the store. It’s horrible not being able to eat enough.”
These cashiers are witnesses to scenes they never thought they would someday see, like this old gentleman who tried to hide food. “He had his hat, remembers Evelyn, and in fact he had put a chicken under his hat … “
“People steal to eat. Before it was for makeup or appliances. Now people steal to eat.”
Evelyn, cashierto franceinfo
Most often, these women are mainly confronted with the anger or even the aggression of some clients. “Minus ten cents more on an article, we get a lotfree Christelle. Everything is our fault and we have insults all day, every day. Every day, every day … “ “I, for example, my name is whore, says Ouafa, a Carrefour cashier for 17 years. In effect, they empty the bag on the cash register “. Céline Arnaud describes clients who are tired of having to make choices: “We are there. It is not: ‘we bring the DVD or not’, it is: ‘we bring the bread.’ more expensive.”
“It’s insults, spits, fights. It can start suddenly.”
Celine Arnaudto franceinfo
“The cashier is the last person they see in the shop, Evelyn complains. So basically they’re chasing us mBut compared to Carrefour, they say: ‘They are thieves’ “. Through these cashiers, it is the giants of large retailers who are targeted. “But we are the same, we have very low salaries, we count every month!”
The anguish of some customers sends these cashiers back to their own difficulties. They themselves do not escape the consequences of inflation. “We can’t do it anymore, we can’t get out anymore, Christelle testifies. I have 1,100 euros, sometimes even 1,070 of monthly salary. Me, I’m not doing this, personally. On the fifteenth of the month I have no more money. ” “We survive! We do not live, we survive!”, Evelyne confirms that with between 1,200 and 1,250 euros a month, she finds herself strangled by the accusations. “I’m alone, so the rent, everything, food, insurance, parking …”
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“Honestly, we’re no better off than customers, Céline Arnaud abounds. We are not shocked because in the end, this is what we experience every day. Today, with the salaries we have, we cannot live with dignity. We can only survive. Definitelyour customers are precarious but we can only understand them since it is the majority of Carrefour employees who live in precariousness “.
For these low-wage cashiers, a new threat looms. They say they have been warned of the upcoming sale of the shop, which Carrefour sold to a buyer. With the risk for them to lose big. “We lose all the benefits, all the corporate deals and we just don’t know where we are going”, Céline Arnaud is desperate. For her part, the management reports via email to franceinfo that“This is just an announcement for this shop that is likely to go into lease management” and that ‘“No decision has been made so far.”
To defend wages and their jobs, the salespeople are planning a strike during the week. They will be able to count on the support of a part of the customers tormented by the increase in prices, but in solidarity with these cashiers.
