French postal operator La Poste has launched a year-long trial with Banque des Territoires of mobile post offices in five rural areas of France to help maintain public services in isolated areas of the country.
Five bright yellow Renault Trucks Master vans will travel around Orne, Gers, Jura, Haute-Marne and Creuse five days a week, stopping in each area for up to three hours at a time. In total, the five mobile post offices will serve 40 different communities, providing postal services to 13,000 inhabitants.
Services available at the mobile post offices include:
- Buying postal products, including stamps for domestic and international mail
- Letter franking and sending of standard and registered parcels
- Senior citizen services, including subscriptions to remote assistance and home meal delivery services
- Access to telephone and internet services, including ordering SIM cards and La Poste Mobile accessories
- Banking transactions for Banque Postale customers, including making an appointment with bank advisors
- Access to other public services
Speaking at the inauguration of the service on April 26, Nathalie Collin, executive vice president of La Poste Groupe, said, “Today, in partnership with Banque des Territoires, La Poste is launching a new form of postal presence. With mobile post offices, we are asserting our presence closer to citizens in rural areas. This experiment demonstrates our determination to make our services more accessible to the public and to inform customers about our France Services offer. We’re going out everywhere in France to meet the needs of our customers.”
Mathieu Aufauvre, regional manager for Bourgogne-Franche-Comté at Banque des Territoires, added, “Proximity, simplicity and local solidarity are all part of our values. It’s a great source of pride for us to see the inauguration of the traveling post office in the Jura region. By bringing public services as close as possible to the people of France, it contributes to social cohesion in the heart of our regions.”