Visiting French postmaster explores Crestview's PO (with photos)

Crestview’s post office received the stamp of approval from a visiting French postmaster Tuesday morning.

Christophe Audéon manages the main post office and five satellite substations serving 20,000 people in the town of Paimboeuf and the surrounding community in Vendée province near the mouth of the Loire River. Audéon was among the contingent of visitors from Crestview’s sister city who departed Thursday after a nearly two-week visit to Florida.

Audéon received a behind-the-scenes tour of the local post office from acting supervisor Dave Strawser and Postmaster John Blair. He watched mail being sorted for delivery, observed front counter operations and had a chance to compare French and American postal operations.

The Frenchmen’s American colleagues learned a little about La Poste, the French postal service, and its operations. Blair was surprised to learn that unlike the United States Postal Service, La Poste does not have a financial deficit despite being one of the nation’s largest employers, with 270,000 workers.

Part of the reason for the service’s success, Audéon explained, is because one of La Poste group’s four branches is a nationwide savings bank, which partially sheltered it from the impact of the worldwide economic downturn. Like the USPS, however, La Poste’s mail and post office components are not profit-makers, Audéon said.

Many French post offices augment their income from stamps, parcel shipping, and banking by operating small gift shops and boutiques, Audéon said.

While the U.S. Postal Service contemplates cutting weekly delivery days to five and closing post offices to save money, French post offices are obliged under law to provide six days of service each week. When La Poste does close a small post office, its services are often picked up by the village or town municipal government, which will operate a small satellite post office from city hall that offers basic postal services sometimes operated by the local mayor.

The postal pros found many more similarities than differences during their hour-long visit. Both strive for on-time delivery, with 90 percent of French mail arriving overnight not only throughout the country, but also in other major European cities. The speedy delivery is partially because La Poste operates a fleet of aircraft as well as its own high-speed TGV trains.

(“They are yellow,” said Audéon through his friend and interpreter Xavier Relandeau, to differentiate the postal rail fleet from the famed French high-speed national passenger service.)

Like the USPS, La Poste’s largest customers are businesses sending commercial mail, Audéon said, sympathizing with Blair as the local postmaster showed his visitors several large containers of newly arrived catalogs and other “standard class” mailings.

Audéon was particularly impressed with the Crestview post office’s emphasis on customer service and striving to assure that even the most poorly addressed envelope finds its way to its addressee. As a large container trundled by en route to a waiting delivery truck out on the dock, he observed, “Everyone seems very happy to work here.”