More than a thousand Decathlon employees went on strike across France on Saturday June 6 to demand an increase in wages, while the company specializing in sporting goods recorded an increase in net profit in 2025.
“Life is not rosy at Decathlon, at least for those who work there,” denounced Sébastien Chauvin, CFDT central union representative at Decathlon, present at a gathering which brought together around thirty people in Paris.
In front of several stores, employees stationed themselves to distribute leaflets and call for people to sign an online petition to support them, which had collected more than 5,300 signatures by mid-afternoon. In Paris, they briefly entered a store to ask, megaphone in hand, for a salary increase. According to Decathlon, participation in the social movement stood at 5% of its 23,000 employees at the end of the morning, and 99% of its 324 stores were open.
Net profit up 16%
In front of the doors of the oldest Decathlon in France in Englos (North), Justine Ammeloot, CFDT union representative and employee at the V2 store in Villeneuve-d’Ascq, denounces the “total refusal” of management “to come to the negotiating table” after the revaluation of the minimum wage in June. For her, “it was the straw that broke the camel’s back” and led to this mobilization whose appeal by the inter-union is “unprecedented”.
In April, Decathlon announced that it had generated a net profit up 16% in 2025, to 910 million euros, and achieved a turnover of 16.8 billion, an increase of 4%. “However, our purchasing power is falling,” laments Véronique Andrade, who tows in Englos and has worked at Decathlon for 29 years. She criticizes the “millions of euros” that the leaders will “put into their pockets”.
“The company is reducing staff numbers, so we have more and more tasks”
“Our job descriptions are more and more complex, and at the same time, the company is reducing staff numbers, so we have more and more tasks, fewer resources to do them and that is not reflected in our salaries,” asserts Simon Korpiun, salesman in the Villeneuve-d’Ascq store, the town where Decathlon is headquartered, and CFDT union representative.
Contacted by Agence France-Presse, Decathlon for its part assured that it “maintains regular dialogue with staff representatives and remains attentive, on a daily basis, to the expectations of its employees”.
The company, founded in the mid-1970s, is regularly among the favorite brands of the French. The Mulliez galaxy brand (Auchan, Leroy Merlin, Kiabi etc.) has 1,902 stores around the world and has nearly 103,000 employees.
