The French supermarket chain Auchan plans to keep its operations in Russia despite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's call to leave the market of the aggressor.
This was stated by Yves Claude, CEO of Auchan Retail International, in an interview to the Journal du Dimanche.
"The most important thing for us is to keep our employees and to ensure that our main mission is to continue to feed the people of these two countries (Russia and Ukraine). We have never had any other goal. I am willing to accept public opinion that disagrees with us. It's easy to criticize us, but we are open and we act for civilians," said Yves Claude.
He also noted that if Auchan leaves Russia, it will leave 30 thousand people out of which 40% are employees and shareholders. In addition, the Russian clients of the retailer are asking him to stay.
Yves Claude stressed that there are 231 stores in Russia, as well as an online store.
As for Ukraine, 43 Auchan stores operate in our country. The General Director of Auchan said that those Ukrainian employees of the chain stores who left their cities because of the war and moved to the west continue to work in their new places.
"About 100 Ukrainian employees who left the country remain with other employees. We even set up a system to take care of all of them, place them and hire them elsewhere," Yves Claude said.
He also stressed that the company helps support Ukrainian refugees.
"We have provided more than 2,300 tons of food, 50,000 hygiene kits and donated more than 2 million euros. And our shareholders decided to send part of the dividends to help refugees," he added.
Recall that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitriy Kuleba called for a boycott of Auchan, which remained in Russia.
We would like to point out that Anonymous hackers have been attacking the websites of Auchan and Leroy Merlin for continuing to operate in Russia.