La Poste
Contents
History
The precursor to a national postal service in France was the infrastructure used by the royal envoys and courriers. These included coaching inns, and indices of routes between those inns.
In 1672, a ferme générale was created for mail services. This led to centralization of postal services under appointed tax and excise officers.
The French Revolution saw these offices seized and, by 1791, the ferme générale was dissolved. The French state assumed direct control over postal services thereafter.
France was a founding member of the General Postal Union, signing in 1874.
In 1879, the postal services were re-organized into the P&T (Postes et télégraphes). This later became the PTT (Postes, télégraphes et téléphones).
In 1991, PTT was divided between France Télécom (later privatized and rebranded as Orange S.A.) and La Poste.
Services
Groupe La Poste
La Poste is the parent company of Groupe La Poste, which includes:
La Banque postale, a postal bank and insurance company
Geopost, a logistics service company
La Poste Mobile, a mobile network operator