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“The first grave incident”, ‘La Poste’ admits
The French postal service ‘La Poste’ has admitted that the printing of pro-LTTE postage stamps is “the first grave incident” that it has encountered in the printing of personalised stamps.
In a statement posted on its website, La Poste also says that its division Phil@poste has been a “victim of unscrupulous and manipulative customers”.
La Poste states that in addition to written apologies, François Chalvet, Director of Sales and Marketing, and Louis Virgile, Director of Strategy and International have apologised to Dr. Dayan Jayatilleke, Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to France, in person.
The English language translation of its statement is given below:
In December 2011, a customer ordered, on the website of Montimbramoi (Myownstamp), sheets of personalised postal stamps (PPS) representing members and symbols of the Tamil movement “Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam”, an organisation listed as terrorist by the European Union since 2006. These stamps were printed on December 14, 2011, a holiday season during which the printing office of Phil@poste in Boulazac had to deal with more than 2,000 requests of personalised postal stamps per week. Moreover, a few days ago, people posing as “cultural actors” also had stamps printed at the Carré d’Encre shop.
It should be recalled that, in the Montimbramoi general terms and conditions of sale, the customer must validate on the website, for each order, the visuals he chose, then engaging his own liability. In addition to this, the commercial teams perform a systematic verification of the proposed visuals. In this moment of “overload”, these personalised postal-stamps exceptionally escaped the vigilance of the said control. For over five years, this is the first grave incident that Phil@poste has known in the printing of personalised postal stamps.
Since several days, Phil@poste has been in touch with both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Embassy of Sri Lanka in Paris on this matter. All doubts have been clarified regarding the liability of Phil@poste, victim of unscrupulous and manipulative customers.
Beyond the written apologies, François Chalvet, Director of Sales and Marketing, and I have met this Thursday, January 5, His Excellency the Ambassador of Sri Lanka to apologise in person on behalf of Phil@poste.
Louis Virgile, Director - Strategy and International
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