From 1 January 2023, the famous red stamp for priority dispatch will give way to electronic letters printed by Swiss Post. A more expensive service, which risks accentuating the digital divide, especially among the oldest…
La Poste’s famous red stamp – bearing the image of Marianne – is living its last days in the form we know today! From 1er January 2023, it will be replaced by the e-Lettre rouge, a digital service consisting of sending an e-mail via the Internet which will be printed near the place of destination and delivered on D+1 (the next day in theory) by La Poste. A “hybrid” process that can cause concern about the security and confidentiality of the content of the missives. The green stamp, reserved for non-priority shipments, will continue to be offered, but its delivery time will be extended by one day, from D+2 (two days after tomorrow) to D+3. Note that stamps purchased before the entry into force of this system will remain usable, but with the new deadlines. A turquoise stamp will also appear for certain types of mail, such as care sheets, checks and other administrative documents (see below). Finally, the Ecopli, the least expensive formula but very little used for a shipment in about 4 days, will be abolished. Again, gray stamps purchased until December 31, 2022 will remain usable without time limit and will continue to be distributed in four days. “You will have understood it, the stamp does not disappear. There will be three postage to meet customer needs: a dematerialized shipment with the Online Letter (or red e-letter), the green stamp and the turquoise stamp (Lettre Services Plus)“, explains La Poste on his site. Decisions taken to modernize the services of La Poste and limit its carbon footprint, but which could well accentuate the digital divide.
La Poste continues its digital transformation
These measures, which had already been announced on July 21, 2022 on the La Poste websiteare part of a package of measures taken by the operator, which claims to modernize its mail range “to respond to new customer uses and improve its carbon footprint”. Measures that La Poste justifies by relying on the fact that the use of the red letter – to understand, mail sent with a red stamp for priority sending in fast mode – tends to disappear in France, in favor of means more immediate electronics, such as SMS, mail (e-mail) and instant messaging. According to its statistics, the annual average per household was only 5 priority letters in 2021 compared to 45 in 2010. And for the majority of everyday uses (sending of administrative documents, postcards, small goods, etc.), it is the Green Letter – therefore the green stamp, in slower mode – which is chosen.
The other argument put forward by La Poste is the environmental impact, more precisely its carbon footprint. To deliver priority letters daily, around a hundred vans, very sparsely filled, criss-cross the roads of France – like the Dijon-Rennes link, with a vehicle that travels 600 km each night for only 500 letters. By 2030, with the development of the red e-Letter and the green letter in D+3, La Poste expects to save some 60,000 tonnes of CO2 per year, which represents a reduction of 25% compared to current discharges. A saving that will result from the cessation of air transport in France during 2023, better filling of trucks and the printing of red e-Letters as close as possible to recipients.
New La Poste formulas: almost stable prices
In practice, to send a red e-Letter, it will be necessary to write an e-mail and go to the La Poste site or go to a post office – where the operation can be carried out alone, on an automaton, or with the Advisor assistance – before 8 p.m. for a reception the following day. The document will then be printed near the addressee and then put in an envelope – with a red stamp design – for distribution. The red e-Letter will be invoiced from 1.49 euro (for 1 to 3 sheets), compared to 1.43 euro for the current priority red stamp, this price including the cost of the paper and the envelope. An increase that La Poste considers painless on the annual postal budget of a household, especially since the price of the green stamp does not change, remaining at 1.16 euros. As today, a distribution follow-up option at the price of 50 cents will allow confirmation of the distribution of the trick.
In addition, for sensitive items requiring traceability (cheque, small goods, etc.) and possible compensation, La Poste will offer a new method, the Turquoise Services Plus Letter. Thanks to so-called “smart data” technology, Turquoise Letter Services Plus will integrate services as standard, such as receiving follow-up notifications, pick-up from the postman’s personal mailbox and flat-rate compensation in the event of delay. of distribution. It will be offered from 2.95 euro, the price varying according to the weight (up to 2 kg), for delivery on D+2. Finally, for “regulatory” shipments, which require legal proof, the Registered Letter service will always be available, from 4.83 euros (compared to 4.55 euros in 2022), with a delivery time of D+3 . Finally, it should be noted that all digital operations can be linked to a personal account in which each user – sorry, “customer” – can consult their mail history and use model letters to carry out their administrative procedures.
If we can welcome the efforts of La Poste not to increase its prices too much on the occasion of these changes, we must not forget the evolution of prices in recent years. For the record, remember that the stamp was worth 0.60 euro in 2012, and that it has therefore more than doubled in ten years, after sharp increases during the 90s.
La Poste’s digital services: an accentuation of the digital divide
As we can see, La Poste continues its “digital transformation” at an accelerated pace, as evidenced by the announcement of the digital stamp, also planned for 2023 (see our article). But this revolution is not without raising problems and questions. Thus, one can legitimately wonder about the confidentiality of the letters sent in e-Letter red, in particular at the time of printing and putting in envelopes. A confidentiality which will only be ensured if these “physical” operations are carried out by means of automated machines, the electronic documents being in principle stored on secure servers. Once the documents are saved, they will be erased but still kept on a long-term archival site for one year. La Poste will have to be extra vigilant on these points, when we know the ingenuity of hackers…
The other sensitive point has a more social character. Because if we understand La Poste’s desire to go more digital, we can wonder what these transformations will impose on users who are less experienced in electronic tools. Starting with the elderly, who are not all comfortable – far from it! – with computers, tablets, smartphones and the Internet. And they are not the only ones in this situation. Not everyone has this kind of device and a connection available at home. And going to a post office to face an automaton or a queue is not ideal. Especially when you know that La Poste is reducing the opening hours of many offices in villages, when it does not simply close them.
The problem of this forced march towards all-digital goes well beyond postal services. In a more general way, it is also appropriate to wonder, even to worry, about the generalization of these methods which impose the use of electronic devices and Internet connection for administrative procedures – declaration of income, vehicle registration certificate, application for allowance, renewal of identity documents, etc. – as for certain payments – transport tickets, such as SNCF tickets, with the scarcity of “human” counters. The digital revolution is leaving the population out of account, by aggravating an increasingly sensitive divide, and not only among the “old”.