Unprecedented strike at Leboncoin: employees denounce a "brutal" shift in the workplace

On Wednesday, March 18, around a hundred Leboncoin employees gathered in front of the platform's Paris headquarters, at the call of the unions. The strike, presented as a first in the company's history, symbolizes a growing discontent that has spilled from the office walls into the streets. Leboncoin boasts 30 million monthly users in France, an impressive figure, but the mood among the staff is far less cheerful.

In the words of the CGT and CFDT union representatives, one turning point keeps recurring: the 2024 acquisition of Adevinta, the site's parent company, by the Blackstone and Permira funds. "Events have escalated to such proportions that we decided to use all available tools to raise the alarm," declared Samuel Sanchez, a CFDT representative. Speaking through a megaphone, Florine Moutoussamy, a CGT representative, emphasized the gap between the company's image and the lived experience of the teams, reminding everyone that public recognition "must also be reflected" in daily work life.

The "favorite brand" caught up by the reality of open-plan offices

Pressure to deliver results, increased scrutiny, loss of trust—the grievances are similar and mounting. One employee, a developer, describes a shift toward "a numbers game," whereas the company previously emphasized user satisfaction. More worryingly, he mentions "signs" suggesting a "disguised redundancy plan," against a backdrop of reorganizations whose details remain unclear to some staff.

Leboncoin, accustomed to communicating about secondhand goods and its status as "France's favorite brand," is discovering a new arena: that of social power struggles. Employee representatives are demanding guarantees regarding work organization and the opening of discussions to get answers about the directions taken since the change in shareholders. In a company that has grown rapidly, this episode serves as a stark reminder: the platform economy loves metrics, but it always ends up stumbling over people, and what happens next will depend on management's ability to restore dialogue where mistrust has taken root.