Why La Poste is removing yellow letter boxes across France

French postal service La Poste is reducing the number of its iconic yellow post boxes across France, as part of plans to “upgrade its network to adapt” to changing needs as people send fewer letters overall.

La Poste said it was removing underused letter boxes in some areas “in consultation with local authorities”.

It stated that it is only removing post boxes that are hardly used, and which - because they still technically require servicing by local postal workers - are costing too much to maintain. Other nearby boxes will still serve these communities, it said.

A recent report by the state auditors la Cour des comptes found that the volume of letters posted in France has fallen from 18 billion per year in 2008 to just six billion in 2023. If this trend continues, the number could fall to five billion by the end of 2025, it said.

However, around 120,000 street letterboxes are still in use today in France (with the fewest in the regions of Ile-de-France and Brittany, La Poste told TF1).

Removal responses

However, the removal of some post boxes has not been widely welcomed by all communities affected, including local postal unions and some residents.

Some postal unions, such as Sud PTT4485 in Nantes, have said that the move constitutes an “abandonment of a public service and sees it above all as a sign of the economic shift that La Poste is seeking to implement”.

“It is accelerating the disappearance of mail itself…In the coming years, 30,000 yellow post boxes will be removed,” claimed Nathalie Jamin, a postwoman in Nantes and union activist, to BFM Alsace.

In Tréméven (Côtes-d'Armor) which only has 355 residents, the removal of a nearby post box in early 2025 caused “incomprehension and unhappiness”, reports Ouest France.

“Once again, it's the oldest residents who are most affected, and this marks the end of a local public service,” said one older resident. 

“It’s OK for the people who can go, bad luck for those who can’t,” said another resident, while another said that they didn’t know how to arrange a delivery online, and were “scared of making a mistake”.

Read also: How to send parcels from home via La Poste 

“This post box was much more than just a postal facility,” said the village mayor, Yves Liennel, who also criticised the suddenness of the box’s removal, to Ouest France. “[The day after the box was removed, some even thought] it had been stolen.”

He also denied La Poste’s claim that the removal had been done in “consultation” with him.

“I was presented with a fait accompli,” he said. “We only received a letter in advance informing us of the removal. This decision, taken without consultation with residents or local representatives, is incomprehensible.”

Similarly, residents in small villages in the Haut-Rhin region are increasingly noticing the disappearance of their post boxes, reports BFM Alsace. One post box, which was removed on January 29, is the latest to go.

“We are definitely not happy,” said Romain Schlienger, who lived just 10 metres from the now-disappeared yellow box. “On the one hand, they say we need less [traffic] pollution, but now we have to go to Goldbach to post anything, which is a four kilometre [drive] away.”

Read more: Removal of post boxes hits rural areas in France hardest

La Poste diversification

Faced with the decline in the sending of letters, and people’s increased use of third-party couriers to send online shopping parcels, La Poste has sought to diversify its services in recent years. 

This includes collecting medicines from a pharmacy and delivering them to your door, the installation of online clothes shopping ‘try on’ cabins for people who are picking up clothes parcels from La Poste branches, and delivering meals to elderly people.

It is also increasingly promoting services such as post forwarding to a new address, encouraging people to use its parcel sending options, and expanding ‘mobile post offices’ – yellow lorries that offer basic post office services – in the most rural areas.