Why Leclerc will be the only distributor absent around Karine Le Marchand at the Agricultural Show

Carrefour, Les Mousquetaires, Auchan, Casino, Coopérative U... The bosses of the major French retail chains will all be there this Wednesday at 9 a.m. at the Salon de l'agriculture with the host Karine Le Marchand.

All or almost all. Lidl, without a designated spokesperson since the departure of Michel Biero , will not have a representative on the stage. But it is the absence of another boss - and not the least - that is striking: that of Michel-Edouard Leclerc. The French champion of the sector with nearly 25% market share will practice the policy of the empty chair.

While the major food retailers are going to announce three actions to support French agirculture, Leclerc did not consider it appropriate to join forces with its competitors.

"I only met Karine Le Marchand once because we were the first distributor of 'Who's the Boss?!' and she suggested this initiative," the distributor explained two weeks ago on BFMTV . "With colleagues, we thought that if I did that, it would be considered PR."

True to his lone-rider strategy, which had already led him to refuse to participate in the "anti-inflation quarter" proposed by Bercy in 2023 , Michel-Edouard Leclerc does not wish to appear in the photo with his little friends.

Is the most media-friendly of France's bosses really afraid of being accused of "PR"? This is probably partly true. As he explained in mid-February, it is not at the Agricultural Show that business decisions are made with the agricultural world.

"It's a showcase, it's not the outlet for agriculture," he recalls. "We've already taken all the initiatives. Our competitors will announce the local alliances, we have 15,000 with Daucy, with Bonduelle, with their vegetable suppliers... I'm not going to go to the Agricultural Show to announce what we've been doing for 15 years."

Michel-Edouard Leclerc also points out that his brand participated in the creation of the Produit en Bretagne brand, which highlights the agri-food know-how of the region's companies. Similar announcements should be made this Wednesday with Karine Le Marchand.

But there may be less avowable reasons for this absence of the distributor. He also half-admitted it on BFMTV by pointing out "the climate where we are accused of putting pressure on farmers". An accusation that he rejects, however, stating that his stores were no more targeted than the others during the previous farmers' movement.

Nevertheless, Leclerc knows that it is in the crosshairs with its European purchasing center Eurelec, accused of circumventing French law on commercial negotiations. The company was also fined 38 million euros by the DGCCRF last August for breaches in this area.

Of course, Leclerc does not buy French agricultural products through this joint purchasing center with the German company Rewe. But it is seen by the agricultural world as a way of circumventing the law that is supposed to protect them by protecting raw materials .

If Leclerc is not the only one to have a European purchasing center, it crystallizes by its position of leader the discontents of the agricultural world vis-à-vis these subjects. So out of the question for him to go up on the platform and risk hearing whistles and boos. Which is certainly not good "PR".