French postal service files complaint after 62 kg of mail found dumped in Doubs forest

Discovery in Saint-Georges-Armont

A forest ranger conducting routine inspections in the woods of Saint-Georges-Armont in the Doubs department of eastern France came across an unexpected cache on Monday, 7 September 2026. Hidden roughly 50 meters inside dense blackberry bushes along the road leading toward Anteuil, the ranger discovered a pile containing approximately 62 kilograms of discarded postal items. The forester gathered the loose envelopes and promotional flyers, filled the trunk of his vehicle with the abandoned correspondence, and drove directly to the local gendarmerie station to report the finding. Local municipal officials confirmed that the forester had his vehicle trunk completely filled with envelopes before handing the entire collection over to law enforcement officers.

It was found by the edge of the road to Anteuil, about fifty meters into the blackberry bushes.

Route across five villages

The abandoned bundle was composed of simple letters and printed advertising brochures originally mailed between 26 August and 3 September 2026. All of the correspondence was addressed to households across five rural villages in the Anteuil sector, located between the larger towns of Besançon and Montbéliard. The targeted delivery zone comprises a combined population of slightly more than 1,100 inhabitants who had gone without regular postal distribution for multiple days during late summer. After receiving the items back from the gendarmerie, French postal operator La Poste secured all of the bundles and restarted delivery rounds to the intended recipients on Thursday, 10 September 2026.

All the mail items in question have been put back into distribution since yesterday.

Staffing inquiry and legal filing

La Poste announced on Friday, 11 September 2026, that it had filed a formal criminal complaint with law enforcement following the confirmation of the incident. An internal investigation indicated that the discarded mail was linked to a temporary worker hired on a fixed-term contract of one month to provide summer holiday relief. The state-owned company stated that the temporary employee no longer works for the postal service, and all delivery duties across the five villages have been reassigned to tenured, permanent postal carriers. Company officials emphasized that the incident represented a direct breach of operational rules and service commitments.

This is an isolated act contrary to the rules and commitments of the company.

Municipal impact and earlier incidents

Local authorities described the disruption caused to households throughout the Doubs district. Sandrine Poete, the mayor of Saint-Georges-Armont, stated that multiple neighbouring communes had gone without mail deliveries for several consecutive days, adding that important personal and administrative documents were delayed. The discovery in Doubs follows a comparable incident recorded in late August 2026 in the Gard department of southern France. During a municipal police patrol in Gallargues-le-Montueux, officers found an abandoned mailbag containing 150 undelivered letters, which prompted a municipal legal filing, an internal inquiry by La Poste, and the redistribution of the recovered letters.