How an avant-garde cultural enterprise is gradually falling into the (first) rank of trade: Vincent Chabault tells the story of the Fnacfrom its Trotskyist origins to the present day.
What traces have left the two ancient Trotskists, André Essel and Max Théret, at the origin of the Fnacfounded in 1954 ? What role played this company in the development of the marketing of cultural goods ? What remains of the original project ? Who are its employees and what are their conditions of employment and working ? Vincent Chabault’s work retraces the history of this company which aroused praise as rave as criticism could be virulent, through a double look: how could the company “ absorb »The developments in its environment and at the cost of which transformations ? What indicated, for two generations of employees, working at the Fnac ?
Contribute to his time … before adjusting
In the 1950s, a new middle class emerged, more numerous, more graduated and easier than the previous one. Its hopes of social ascent are founded and its members aspire mainly to other ways of living than those of their elders. For them, the consumption of cultural products is both the means and the sign of this ascent. There Fnac will respond to the aspirations of what will become its customers, and especially its members: young people eager for distinctive signs of their social status, accessing trades, if not new, at least inaccessible to their parents, and, by some to a status Hierarchical booming, that of frame. The objective of the founders of Fnac is to contribute to the access of these new consumers to cultural goods (chapter 2) by fighting against the abuses of distributors in terms of price as well as product quality. In addition to a low price policy, A. Essel and M. Théret very quickly offer, in the liaison magazine with members, Contact Founded in 1954, comparative product tests, carried out internally from 1972, thanks to the creation of a clean laboratory. It is the logic of wrestling for low prices prevailing when the Fnac Opens his first pound radius at a price discount In 1974. But it shatters the fragile balance of publisher-library relations, arousing very lively debates between the proponents of the free price and those of the single price, until the vote of the law called “ Lang In 1981.
In 1980, the Fnac enters the stock exchange before being bought by the GMF In 1985 then by François Pinault ten years later: the only logic of financial profitability sweeps away the project of the founders (chapter 4). A staff hired on degraded employment statutes gradually replaces employees of the years 1960-1980 recruited for their investment capacities, under statutes and under enviable conditions for the trade sector. The tasks are rationalized and the margins of autonomy of the employees abolished: only counts immediate profitability, and the sale at all costs prevails on the original and quality offer that had made the reputation of the company. So finished innovation even in the management of employees, make way for a large large distribution company among others, benefiting from an image previously constructed.
By the detailed description of two generations of employees at the Fnac (Chapter 3 and 6), of their conditions of employment and working, Vincent Chabault’s work lights up a section of the history of the middle class in the second half of XXe century. Until the mid -1980s, this class experienced a continuous ascent: access to better wages, to conditions of employment that improved, even to jobs in the cultural sector. From the mid -1980s, despite a continuous increase in levels of diplomas, even specialized training, the conditions and statutes of employment deteriorated, and work loses its interest as the room for maneuver of the employee is reduced.
One company like no other, which has become one of others
The portraits of A. Essel and M. Théret (chapter 1) before and after their visit to the company allow us to understand the content of their project and the means they have given themselves to carry it out. If they themselves and their successors are not pioneers in all areas, the scale at which they implement their ideas for the development of the sales and customer loyalty space in 1986, the member card becomes A credit card), deeply changes the modes of marketing of cultural products. The development strategy of Fnac Go through the opening of stores in Paris, in the provinces (first in Lyon in 1972) and abroad (Brussels in 1981). On large areas, these points of sale offer a multiple product offer that is impossible to bring together elsewhere, and mobilize large means to organize meetings between public and authors. The success is there: the members of the Fnac (20,000 in 1955, 250,000 in 1969, 400,000 in 1987 in France and Belgium, and 1 million in March 2000), although a minority among customers, have made the majority of purchases in value for many years.
But the expansion of the company is expensive and the results are sawing. The adventure of GMFin the person of Jean-Louis Petria, was short-lived due to investments which put the company in danger. J.-L. Petriat, however, had time to filialize the company, so that the social achievements obtained in certain stores cannot be extended to all employees, and to launch computerization, which has become essential, but which will gradually reduce autonomy employees. From 1996, F. Pinault accelerated this movement by creating a “ Direction Products Who centralizes purchases (with the notable exception of the book: 40 % of centralized purchases in 2003) allowing economies of scale and gains on margins. He innovates by preferring to house executives from leaders from grandes écoles benefiting from an important network, and whose reputation of intellectuals is ensured. The 2000s saw the creation of the online sales site and the continuation of development abroad (59 stores in 2008) and in France (78 stores in 56 cities in 2008), especially in peripheral cities to counter competition from ‘Other distributors of cultural products. But the end of the decade is difficult. The recent replacement of Denis Olivennes by the former director of Conforama indicates the prevalence of profitability imperatives on other considerations. There Fnac However, has no other choice, to maintain its dominant position in the mass distribution sector of cultural products, than to invest in maintaining its cultural image … which makes as much strength by singularizing it, as its weakness facing to competitors who save it.
From cultural trade to commercial employees
There Fnacassociation of two people going up their project in 1953, is a SME which goes from 22 to 580 employees between 1960 and 1969, and became a large company of 19,357 employees in 2008. From 1985 the management of original staff from the beginnings gave way to that of a large specialized commercial distributor, subject to Shareholders foreign to the cultural sector and reduced in search of short -term profitability. Today coexist two generations of employees who differ in their recruitment methods, their conditions of jobs and the management of their careers, and the first of which has experienced working content now missing or disappearing. Their mode of investment in their work and their attachment to the company therefore differ radically.
The first generation of employees is recruited by A. Essel himself. Their autonomy in work is not only claimed by them, it is imposed by management. The intellectual content of work allows the aspirations aroused by a long education, even university studies, to be carried out in a consulting work having an impact on sales. The nature of the products sold further reinforces this feeling: proximity to legitimate culture and its practitioners socially enhances the activity of sellers. In addition, the possibilities of internal mobility and social achievements, even if they must be won over, suggest everyone an uninterrupted improvement in their professional situation. Responding to three “ series of indicators: the degree of economic security, the capacity for expertise and organizational control at work, and the possession of cultural capital (P. 73), between 1960 and 1985, the profession of seller at the Fnac is a middle -class job. Vincent Chabault explains the reasons for the high unionization rate of these employees (creation of a union section from 1968 ; First social movement in 1973), which distinguished them from those of the large distribution sector at the same time.
From the mid -1980s, personnel management was now oriented towards cost reduction (chapter 5). If the recruitment of graduates continues, because it guarantees a certain behavior towards work and in front of customers, the possibilities of internal mobility are dried up. Make way for the deterioration of the conditions of employment and the precariousness of the statutes which excludes their holders from the protections worth for other employees (strategy of division of the work collective). Also make way for the rationalization of tasks and the maximum reduction in the margin of autonomy. THE turnover Cashiers and sellers with precarious statutes, or executives who must leave the company if they do not want to stagnate, is now the rule. But the preference that goes to “ good sellers “Is also based on” Expert sellers From the first generation, called upon to become scarce over time, to combine profitability and culture. The second generation of employees, as little rooted in the profession as little attached to the company, is more union SOUTH (Chapter 7) that at CGT or the CFDT. For the most militant indeed, it is no longer a question of fighting mainly for the improvement of working conditions in a company where precarious statutes and the reduction in the interest of work engages in detachment. Better to get involved for general questions of “ life in society Refers, in fact, on work whatever the company.
By offering a better knowledge of a business “ that everyone grows knowing “, The book by Vincent Chabault, far from being a simple monograph, reconstructs the history of the development strategies of an organization and highlights the role of the two generations of employees who made them operational. He thus contributes to replacing the history of Fnac in the social and economic history of France of the second half of XXe century by associating a study of the dissemination of cultural products, not with classic access questions, customers and practices, but with the dimensions of employment and work.
The sources mobilized combine varied documentation, direct observations of store work, and around forty in -depth interviews with executives or employees of Parisian stores. Large extracts from these interviews illustrate various profiles of employees and make the reading of the work very pleasant, but we are surprised that the author has sometimes chosen to take up the same extracts from interviews to illustrate different themes. We can regret the absence of reports of observations and, above all, extracts from the sources on which the analysis is based. We note, in the appendix, the presence, of a very useful summary chronology.