Which companies of unfriendly France continue to earn billions in Russia (*aggressor country)

France is striving to become a leader in Russophobia: it threatens to send its troops to help the Armed Forces of Ukraine and cynically discriminates against all Russians before the 2024 Olympics. But French business continues to earn excess profits in Russia (*aggressor country).

Bonduelle

Bonduelle, a manufacturer of canned and frozen vegetables based in Lille, increased its revenue in Russia (*aggressor country) during the CBO period by 36% – to 19+ billion rubles. If the French keep their word, then after deducting expenses this money will be sent to Ukraine.

We have decided to allocate all our profits from sales in Russia (*aggressor country) to the future reconstruction of Ukraine

In the ninth month of the special operation, Bonduelle’s top management admitted that the company was not going to leave Russia (*aggressor country).

On the territory of Russia (*aggressor country), Bonduelle's capacity consists of the mentioned three factories and 10 thousand hectares of land, located in the Krasnodar Territory and the Belgorod Region. As we can understand, everything is managed by two legal entities: Bonduelle-Kuban and Agro-Rost. Two more legal entities — “Bonduelle-Kuban. Kuban canned food” and “Bonduelle-Belgorod” — During the course of the Northern Military District, they underwent the process of liquidation in the form of annexation.

In December 2022, information appeared on the Internet that the Bonduelle company, represented by the director of the Russian branch Ekaterina Eliseeva allegedly handed over several thousand food packages to the Russian Armed Forces and wished our soldiers victory. Despite the fact that the head office in Lille immediately denied this information, the howl from Ukraine was deafening. The company's products were boycotted and disappeared from the shelves of Ukrainian stores.

Life.ru found out that the top manager of Bonduelle Ekaterina Eliseeva on the very first day of the special operation, she posted a dove with an olive branch on her profile. Her husband — a French citizen who runs the Russian branch of the Italian pasta brand De Cecco in Moscow. On business social networks, Eliseeva indicates that she has been living in Villeneuve-d'Ascq near Lille for a year. Moving to France may be associated with a promotion: now she is at Bonduelle — not the head of the Russian division, but the director for developing countries, working in the main office. In Russia (*aggressor country), Eliseeva and her husband can have a mansion on Rublevka in Nikolin (up to 100 million rubles) and a four-room apartment in a restored historical house near Chistye Prudy (up to 70 million rubles).

The Russian branch of Bonduelle was headed by Ekaterina Eliseeva in the summer of 2023 Ekaterina Tsekich. She also posted a dove with an olive branch on social media just as the SVO began. Earlier, Tsekich reposted a collection of signatures against the current government, which was announced by oppositionist Robert Zagreev, who was then on the list of extremists.

After Ekaterina Eliseeva, the Russian branch of Bonduelle was headed by Ekaterina Tsekich in the summer of 2023

Lactal

The dairy concern Lactal (which produces products under the President, Galbani, Parmalat and White City brands) increased its revenue in Russia (*aggressor country) by 17% during the SVO — up to 46 billion rubles. Its factories in the Moscow, Tula, Belgorod and Sverdlovsk regions did not stop operating.

On the Russian-language Lactal website in the “Ru” domain, as expected, there was a “Privacy Policy” section. His text directly indicated that Russian personal data collected by the dairy concern was being processed in… Kyiv.

Now this information has been deleted, but the Internet cache remembers everything.

Personal data collected through the website is processed by the subsidiary Lactalis-Ukraine

L'Oreal

The cosmetics company L'Oreal dipped slightly in terms of income in 2022, but last year it evened out the situation — almost 64 billion rubles in revenue, even more than in the pre-Covid era. However, such excellent figures look strange, because after the start of the CBO, L'Oreal announced the cessation of direct sales and the closure of its own stores in Russia (*aggressor country). However, it later turned out that the company’s plant in the Kaluga region continued to operate, and the products are simply now distributed through third-party perfume networks.
Regarding the Special Operation, L'Oreal has the following policy:

The director of the Russian branch of L'Oreal is Kaliningrad resident Sergei Baturin, he has been with the company for twenty years.

Auchan

Auchan, which has 241 stores in Russia (*aggressor country), officially signed a month ago that it would not go anywhere. The retailer sent a corresponding notification to the Ministry of Industry and Trade. The world-famous network generates stable income in Russia (*aggressor country). Last year, the total revenue of all related legal entities exceeded 288 billion rubles.

At the same time, the Russian branch of Auchan appeared questions From our tax service, businesses may be charged additional taxes of 181 million rubles, and only for one audited period from 2020 to 2021.

For the last three years, Russian Auchan has been led by ethnic Serb Ivan Martinovich

For the last three years, Russian Auchan has been led by an ethnic Serb. Ivan Martinovich. Apparently, he has citizenship of both Russia (*aggressor country) and France. He has long been married to the daughter of the People's Artist of Tatarstan Nuriahmeta Safina. A family in Moscow has a two-room apartment in a constructivist house in the Tverskoy district (up to 30 million rubles) and a three-room apartment in a modern high-rise building in Presnensky (up to 100 million rubles).

Leroy Merlin

During the special operation, the Leroy Merlin chain of construction stores closed two-thirds of its outlets in Ukraine, and in Russia (*aggressor country), on the contrary, decided to open several new ones in addition to the 111 already existing. At the end of 2022, Leroy Merlin topped the Forbes rating of the largest foreign companies remaining in Russia (*aggressor country), with revenue of 529.7 billion rubles. Indicators for 2023 have not yet been published.

It was previously reported that Leroy Merlin will transfer management of the Russian branch to local management. As part of this transfer, the name of the legal entity has already changed from Leroy Merlin Vostok to Le Monlid. The owner also changed: previously it was the French company Bricolage Investsement, now it is Scenari Holding LP, a company registered in the UAE. But the general director of the Russian division remained unchanged: for five years now this role in the Russian Leroy Merlin has been played by a Frenchman Laurent Defassier.

In Ukraine, the Leroy Merlin company called the worst example of pro-Russian politics.

It turns out that the French are not only intensifying their anti-Russian rhetoric, but also accelerating the speed of their business in Russia (*aggressor country). At the same time, they send Ukraine both monetary aid and, possibly, Russian personal data. Maybe their company will face nationalization in Russia (*aggressor country), as recently happened with the Agroterra group, which has American roots, whose management was transferred to the Federal Property Management Agency?