Employees at Decathlon (one of the world's largest sporting goods retailers, with over 100,000 staff and 1,900 stores globally) staged strikes across its 365 French outlets on Saturday, demanding that management apply a 2.41% minimum wage increase intended to offset inflation. Union representatives say the action is unprecedented and point to a sharp contradiction: the company distributes between €400 million and €1 billion annually in dividends to its founding Leclercq family shareholders, whose fortune is estimated at nearly €5 billion, while rejecting basic pay rises for frontline staff. Unions say the strike also aims to publicly highlight the labour practices of a company frequently held up by French governments as a model employer.