Georges Plassat, who retired as chief executive of French supermarket group Carrefour in July 2017, has agreed to relinquish €4m of his retirement package after uproar from unions and harsh criticism from the government.
Plassat was set to walk away with a paycheque of €13.17m, including a so-called non-compete clause worth almost €4m that had been granted by Carrefour in exchange for him pledging not to join a competitor.
Carrefour said that Plassat had given up the €4m “due to the incomprehension surrounding the financial conditions” pertaining to his departure.
The initial package prompted booing from union representatives at the shareholders’ meeting, where it was approved. Finance minister Bruno Le Maire took to Twitter: “That failure is recompensed with such high remuneration is incomprehensible and shocking.”
Plassat has been criticised for his failure to move with the times, notably with regard to ecommerce and hanging on to the company’s old-fashioned hypermarket model. At the time when his pay package was announced, the company was busy executing his plan to lay off several thousand staff.