Post Offices to become one-stop shops …
It has been anounced that around 1,000 rural post offices across France could be transformed into one-stop-shops for utilities, benefits and other government services.
Under new plans, the government is seeking to work in partnership with La Poste, to help and transform rural post offices by increasing the number of facilities that it would offer, which would make them a central hub in villages and enable the rural offices to remain open.
The maisons de services publics would group gas and electricity providers EDF, GDF-Suez along with the SNCF, Pôle emploi, and the health and benefits agencies CNAM and CNAF.
1000 to be created by end of 2016
There are already 362 such maisons de services in France, but the Prime Minister, Manuel Valls has announced he wants to see 1,000 created by the end of 2016.
The post offices that will be chosen, will be chosen from communes which have an average population of 1,500 people and which currently serve around 70 people a day.
Currently La Poste is obliged to keep 17,000 ‘points of contact’ open across the country, which includes counters in other facilities, like local shops, as well as actual post offices.
Funding for the new maisons de services offices will be split between local and national government and the various agencies that will be operating in them.
The partnership with La Poste will be discussed by the cabinet on the 24th June, the minister for housing and rural territories, Sylvia Pinel has confirmed.
