Naf Naf introduces new job protection plan, will close 17 stores in France

French womenswear retailer Naf Naf, which filed for receivership in September, is set to close 17 stores as part of a new recovery plan, putting at risk 87 retail jobs and 30 head office ones, as the CFDT union told AFP on Thursday.

The decision was taken on Wednesday after a meeting with the employees’ union representatives, and will affect stores in the French cities of Mulhouse, Bordeaux, Saint-Omer, Brest, Marseilles, Niort, Levallois, Nancy, Paris, Nice, Aix-en-Provence, Lille, Toulouse, Tours and Boulogne.

All the stores will close around November 10, except for Nice (end of January 2024) and Boulogne (end of March 2024).

Naf Naf’s head office in France will move from Asnières to Bondy in mid-November, and the job protection plan will apply to head office employees unwilling to change their work location, said Angélique Idali, the union representatives’ secretary and a delegate for CFDT, the union that has a majority presence (87%) at Naf Naf.

Idali also said she fears the number of head office jobs at risk, currently 30, may increase, given that Naf Naf’s e-shop is still closed.

“Some of the employees have more than 25 years on the job, it’s a shock,” Idali told AFP, adding that “in four months, the company has slashed more than 150 jobs.”

Naf Naf was placed in receivership by the trade court of Bobigny in September, burdened by debt mainly because of rents unpaid during the pandemic.

As is generally the case, the company is being monitored for a six-month period.

A new hearing is scheduled on November 7, and it is expected to give the court a chance “to assess the company’s situation, including its finances,” said Idali.

Naf Naf is a mid-market womenswear brand founded in 1973 by two brothers, and now owned by Franco-Turkish group SY International. Before the latest job protection plan, it had 660 employees in France, and operated 135 stores. In 2022, Naf Naf recorded a revenue of €141 million, and a spokesman told AFP at the end of August that the company was growing.

Naf Naf had first been placed in receivership in May 2020. It was then bought by SY International, which employs 1,500 people worldwide, and also acquired French womenswear brand Sinéquanone in 2019.

In June 2023, Naf Naf started to restructure, suppressing 37 job as part of a new recovery plan.