“We are on the verge of reinventing the fax. » From 1er January 2023, the red La Poste stamp will disappear. This stamp, which promised mail delivery the day after it was sent, will be replaced by an “e-letter” version., which should make it possible to save truck and plane journeys to distribute the mail quickly.
To use this formula, billed at 1.49 euros – compared to 1.43 euros for the emblematic red stamp – you will have to send a document of three sheets maximum before 8 p.m. the post office website or from a post office. The document will then be printed near the addressee, put in an envelope and distributed the next day.
But this new electronic stamp does not convince everyone. Many Internet users denounce an attack on the secrecy of correspondence, protected by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and mock this new system, comparing it to a chargeable e-mail or quite simply… to a fax.
“A 1.49 euro email? »
Indeed, on Twitter, some do not fail to compare this e-letter to a fax, a concept popularized in the middle of the XXe century, which made it possible to convert a document into electrical impulses to transmit it to the recipient through a telephone line. On reception, the reverse conversion was performed and the document was printed. A process broadly comparable to what La Poste intends to put in place from 1er January.
Another user of the social network even dares the comparison with the pneumatic, technique which consisted in sending in a network of compressed air tubes a fast letter.
Environmentalist Senator Melanie Vogel, meanwhile, ironically questions in a tweet: “Basically, we are removing a service to replace it with an e-mail at 1.49 euros, am I right? »
A violation of the confidentiality of correspondence?
If the new formula proposed by La Poste makes some smile, it worries others, in particular because of a possible attack on the confidentiality of correspondence. Indeed, in order to be distributed, the document sent by internet by the sender will be printed by a postal agent. A stage during which Internet users believe that the mail can therefore be read before being distributed.
A bias is notably reported by many justice professionals, who are concerned about the breach of professional secrecy and the confidentiality of exchanges. “How is it for urgent letters sent by the courts? ! ? ! Are we going to use this e-letter that is not at all official or confidential? ! ??! »denounces on Twitter a surfer, clerk, this December 30.
A lawyer stresses the impossibility now of writing to his clients in prison without risking that the content of his mail be brought to the knowledge of a third party. “And all together, we thank very much [La Poste] which prohibits as of Monday all lawyers from writing urgently to detainees! »he tweets.
For another black dress, “the dematerialized red stamp is naturally not suitable for a lawyer-client exchange in one direction or the other”.
The risk of digital divide
But La Poste’s e-letter also risks coming up against the use of digital because, as indicated by the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Communications, Posts and Press Distribution (Arcep) in its 2021 Barometer [PDF]35% of French citizens admit to experiencing a difficulty that prevents them from fully using digital tools.
Bruno Retailleau, leader of Les Républicains senators, also denounces this risk, as well as that of“to further impoverish the civilization of writing through the programmed end of handwritten letters”.
Not sure, however, that the end of the red stamp marks the ” loss [des] epistolary works » since the green stamp still exists. On the other hand, it will be necessary to wait a little longer for the mail to arrive safely: the deadline will increase from two to three working days in 2023 for distribution.
