Latent and largely uninterrupted, the gross margin squeeze alone illustrates Carrefour's tragedy: half its sales come from its domestic market - the French market - which is as competitive as it is saturated. The consequence of this cut-throat competition is a downward price race that no force can oppose.

Against this backdrop, the Group is obliged to exercise iron discipline in the management of its operating costs. Unfortunately, the considerable efforts made in this area since Alexandre Bompard's arrival have been undermined by the return of inflation, and the additional burden this represents for the payroll. After a recovery, operating margins are once again under pressure.

The consequence of these dynamics is a return on assets that has been steadily declining for the past twenty years - exactly halving over the period. To compensate for this, and to keep return on equity afloat as best we can - which in reality has not escaped the downturn either - financial leverage has only increased.

Falling profitability, rising debt: it's clear that investors are not happy with this disastrous combination, as reflected in the almost continuous erosion of the share price over the past two decades.

The case of Carrefour, moreover, is a good illustration of the intrinsic problem of highly capital-intensive businesses with no pricing power, which suffer from inflation even more harshly than other businesses: on the one hand, their margins are squeezed by rising costs, while on the other, their capital expenditure increases.

Nevertheless, the situation is tending to improve somewhat since the change of management and strategy - necessarily a very long-term undertaking - initiated in 2017. Last year, earnings per share reached a fifteen-year high, while the transition of the business model to franchised stores and smaller surface areas is clearly boosting cash flow generation.

The trend is clear - it remains to be seen whether it will be confirmed this year - and has enabled the Group to return EUR3.3 billion to its shareholders over the last three years, or EUR1.1 billion a year on average, two-thirds of which via share buy-backs. Given the Group's depressed valuation relative to its peers, such a choice seems perfectly logical.

This attractive valuation is sure to attract the attention of value investing enthusiasts. It will not have escaped the attention of these discount hunters that Carrefour is trading at x0.9 equity value, i.e. on its twenty-year low, and for a dividend yield of 6.1%, i.e. on its twenty-year high!

Of course, the objection is that a "catalyst" event would be needed for the distributor to regain the market's favor. But what kind of event could it be? The French market is not less competitive - it's quite the opposite - and a distributor remains at a structural disadvantage internationally, as it is far from its home base and therefore less likely to achieve economies of scale.

Against this backdrop, it's hardly surprising that Alexandre Bompard grimaced when Bruno Le Maire opposed a merger between Carrefour and Alimentation Couche-Tard.