Cover: via https://www.cfdt-orange.org/atalante-futur-en-route-vers-flex/
Le Monde Libertaire, via machine translation || Orange (formerly France Telecom) is a former national public telecommunications service that has become a multinational telecommunications company, with approximately 50,000 employees in France (and over 120,000 worldwide). Cesson-Sévigné, east of Rennes, is the Orange group’s second largest employment hub in France, with over 5,000 employees, not counting the numerous subcontractors.
Orange built its flagship headquarters there in 2019. This new building, entirely made of concrete and yet poetically named “Atalante,” was designed to consolidate all the employees currently working in other buildings around Rennes.
Initially, management didn’t want a company cafeteria solution, but around 2016, employee mobilization led to the establishment of a company restaurant, albeit with minimal investment for the employer, as it was designed for 460 meals a day, whereas it currently serves over 800, without any additional infrastructure. Even then, colleagues insisted on protecting their quality of work life and the pleasant atmosphere of their breaks.
By planning to bring over 180 additional colleagues to this already overcrowded site this summer of 2026, management has generated a rare wave of discontent among this workforce, which is primarily composed of IT and network engineers and researchers. This further forced expansion is no longer acceptable.
94% of employees believe that the arrival of these 180 additional colleagues will primarily create problems for the already overcrowded company restaurant.
The result: The theme is “Overcrowded cafeteria, pressured catering staff: this must stop!” The battle over staff catering at Orange Atalante is becoming a symbol. A symbol of what capitalist logic produces when it claims to optimize costs, increase space density, and put ever-greater pressure on workers. A symbol, too, of what employees can build when they refuse to be passive and organize collectively.
For months, warnings have been coming from the ground. Overcrowded company restaurant, endless queues, deteriorating working conditions for SODEXO catering staff, lack of seating, premises now unsuitable for the massive increase in staff on site: the situation is explosive. Behind the managerial rhetoric of “reorchestration (!)” and “micro-zoning,” a very concrete reality is unfolding for both Orange employees and subcontracted workers: ever-increasing density, ever-decreasing resources.
Faced with this situation, the staff didn’t wait for any hypothetical goodwill from management. A collective mobilization took shape, driven by Orange employees, unions, and growing solidarity with the catering workers. This struggle reached a turning point with the petition “Overcrowded canteen, Catering workers under pressure: this must stop!” demanding immediate investment in the Atalante catering facilities.
https://www.change.org/p/investir-pour-la-restauration-%C3%A0-atalante
The petition has been a resounding success. 1,168 signatures had already been collected by April 29th, and the number continues to climb. More than a thousand employees have stated unequivocally that they refuse the ongoing deterioration of their living and working conditions. This figure is far from insignificant. It reflects a deep anger but also a collective desire to reclaim their voice.
Employees rightly believe that beyond simply providing a food service, the company restaurant is a place for building social connections among colleagues in a friendly atmosphere. It’s a place for informal discussions with coworkers, where they can perhaps solve the world’s problems. This break time contributes to the quality of work life. This makes institutional catering a common good that must be defended, all the more essential as many collective structures are struggling with remote work, for example.
On April 29, this mobilization materialized in the Atalante lobby. Sixty-seven colleagues gathered and officially presented the 1,168 signatures to the decision-makers in the institutional catering sector. A powerful moment: employees demanding accountability from those who make decisions without ever facing the consequences.
The demands are clear and legitimate.
First, emergency measures to immediately alleviate overcrowding in the restaurant. Employee representatives are demanding, in particular, agreements with other restaurants in the Atalante area to prevent all Orange employees from being concentrated in a single, overcrowded space.
They are also calling for significant investments to truly adapt the infrastructure: expanding the back kitchen, covering and heating the outdoor terrace, improving storage and production areas, checking ventilation and air renewal systems, and upgrading the cold chain. These improvements have been requested for a long time.
But the mobilization goes beyond just the comfort of the diners. Because behind the restaurant’s operation lies, above all, the working conditions of the Sodexo employees.Here again, the findings are damning. The independent expert assessment conducted by the consulting firm Technologia, the observations of the labor inspectorate, and the work of the Health, Safety and Working Conditions Committee (CSSCT) have highlighted the pressures exerted on staff, the inadequacy of staffing levels to meet actual demands, and the psychosocial risks generated by this work organization.
The report reiterates a fundamental truth too often overlooked in subcontracting arrangements: the contracting entity, Orange in this case, remains responsible for the social consequences of the operating procedures it imposes. Catering employees are not a variable to be adjusted to absorb the effects of increased staffing levels decided in the offices of the real estate and finance departments.
Orange management, for its part, continues to stall for the time being. At the rally on April 29, the president of the National Catering Committee postponed the decisions until a presentation scheduled for the end of June. More time gained for the decision-makers; more time lost for the workers. This waiting strategy is classic: exhaust the mobilizations, let the anger subside, multiply the meetings while the concrete conditions continue to deteriorate.
But this time, something seems different. Because the employees now have access to expert reports, detailed opinions voted on by the Works Council, and even observations from the labor inspectorate that confirm the reality of the problems denounced for months. Because the mobilization has succeeded in articulating the interests of diners and those of restaurant workers, rejecting the usual division between users and workers. And above all, because a collective consciousness is being built around a simple idea: human needs must take precedence over accounting principles.
This local conflict also reveals a more general evolution of contemporary capitalism. In large technology or service companies, they talk about “innovation,” “flex office ,” and “transformation,” but behind the modern words lies the same logic of exploitation. Spaces are crammed in, costs are cut, the most arduous tasks are outsourced, and then employees are asked to adapt to conditions that have become untenable.
The struggle at Atalante thus recalls a fundamental truth of militant unionism: nothing is won without a struggle for power. Neither Corporate Social Responsibility charters nor the fine-sounding managerial pronouncements of ” Happiness Managers ” will improve working conditions, but rather the collective organization of the workers themselves.
And the next step is already on everyone’s mind.
On June 22nd and 23rd, members of the National Catering Committee are scheduled to return to the Atalante site. The mobilized employees intend to use this opportunity to maintain pressure and remind decision-makers that they cannot ignore the situation indefinitely. The mobilization doesn’t end with submitting a petition. It can now be sustained over time.
At Orange Atalante , as elsewhere, workers are demonstrating that solidarity remains their best weapon. Faced with authoritarian management practices and the gradual dismantling of working conditions, they are relying on mutual aid, self-organization, and collective action.
And this, for both management and executives, remains the greatest threat.
Pierre,
La Sociale, Federation Anarchiste Rennes
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