A new mail system in Languedoc-Roussillon

In regional newspaper Midi Libre of this Sunday 18 January 2009 (1 and 2), the French Post presents his new Languedoc Mail Industrial Platform (plate-forme industrielle courrier or PIC). It will be put in operation next November, in Fréjorgues, on Mauguio commune, next to the Montpellier-Méditerranée airport.

The chief of project, Robert Alberti, accumulates the numbers: more then two millions pieces of mail treated daily (forty thousands per hour) by three teams of eighty people (one for economic mail) and nine "ultra-modern" machines (six for small envelopes, two for larger formats and one to prepare mail). All placed in a 24000 square meter one-level hall. Forty millions euros are spent by the French postal operator to fight competition and deliver 90% of mail the day after posting (La Poste's "Mail Quality Cap" program). Forty millions out of the ninety La Poste is spending in Languedoc-Roussillon. A large part because this platform will cancel, sort and dispatch mail for four départements (Aude, gard, Hérault and Lozère).

Located in the pericenter of Montpellier, north of Saint-Martin area, the current main mail center of Rondelet is treating thirty thousands mail hourly on many floors. Its employees were on strike many times or by rotation late 2008 because the PIC will alter the human part of mail working (three centers replaced by on PIC, less people employed in the end). They obtained two allowances for adaptation and displacement, but the atmosphere is heavy at Rondelet mail center.

To amateurs of new coded cancellations (the ROC ones which replaced postal codes and number/name of départements on French cancellations), secondary platforms are progressively put in place for some years - existing, revamped ot to be built - to prepare and distribute the mail (PPDC). There, the mail is class by postmen's circuits (a task historically done at local post offices early in the mornings, by the postmen).
* in Aude : Carcassonne and Narbonne ;
* in Gard : Nîmes and Alès (to be created) ;
* in Hérault : Saint-Jean-de-Védas near Montpellier, Béziers (to be created in Vendres) and one inside the Languedoc PIC (hence the preparing machine?) ;
* in Lozère : in Mende.

For the Pyrénées-Orientales, the Roussillon PIC in Perpignan cost ten millions euros and three PPDC are planed in Perpignan, Prades (western part of this Pyrenean département) and Saint-Génis-des-Fontaines (south, between the touristic coast line and at the entrance of the Vallespir).