France's La Poste hikes price of stamps to make up for dwindling service

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France's cash-strapped national postal service is bumping up the price of stamps in 2019.

France's La Poste announced Friday it was putting up the average price of its stamps by 4.7 percent in the coming year.

Normal green stamps will increase by eight cents up to 88 cents (10 percent rise) whilst red registered post stamps will surpass the one euro mark and now cost €1.05, compared to the current 95 cent price.

The price of tracking stickers will remain the same: 40 cents.

For parcels, domestic shipments will see a more moderate rise, 1.4 percent.

"For companies, professional courier rates will increase by 2.5 percent and for direct marketing it will go up by 1.5 percent, to encourage the use of media mail (a special service for sending hardcopies of media)”, La Poste is quoted as saying by Le Figaro.

"The consumer price for La Poste’s Colissimo courier service in metropolitan France for packages weighing less than 250g will remain at the same price as in 2018, €4.95."

La Poste has tried to reassure members of the public who may feel a little hard done regarding the price hike by reminding them that "the household budget in postal products represents about 0.1 percent of their total budget, about €44 per year on average".

"The impact of the increase will therefore be of less than €3 per year per household".

France’s national postal service got permission from the country’s Regulatory Authority for Electronic Communications and Post (ARCEP) after the public postal body suffered €550 million in losses in 2018 due to the general lack of demand from the public.

In fact, it’s the third year running that ARCEP has given La Poste the green light to hike prices by 5 percent in order to keep financially afloat.

La Poste will be allowed to carry on doing so until 2022.

Mail volumes in France have dropped by 6 percent a year for the last five years.

How long before sending a letter or a postcard in France or anywhere in the world becomes completely obsolete?