France is one of Europe’s logistics hubs, moving goods across the continent and beyond. The country’s location is optimal for the shipping and transport elements of logistics services, due to its 5,500km of coastline, 462 maritime ports and direct access to land borders with seven neighboring countries.
The French transport and logistic market is projected to grow at an annual rate of 1.85 percent in upcoming years, building toward a projection of over $342 billion USD within the decade. Read on to learn about the French approach to logistics and the top companies in the industry.
Logistics Companies in France
- HERE Technologies
- Cencore
- CMA CGM
- Alstom
- GEODIS
- CEVA Logistics
Top Logistics Companies in France
Founded: 1928
Logistics technology company Alstom builds connected systems for the railway transportation and shipping sector. Its product lines include tools for railway operations, including rolling stock and signaling systems. Its service menu focuses on modernization processes that bring digital and automated elements to railway operations. A global powerhouse, the French multinational manufacturer has 17 offices in France alone. Its headquarters in Saint-Ouen is also an engineering and R&D facility.
Founded: 1978
CMA CGM is an enterprise logistics and shipping company, and one of the world’s top providers of container ship services. In recent years, CMA CGM has moved over 21.7 twenty-foot equivalent units of shipping containers annually, which are transported via its fleet of reefer containers, liquefied natural gas-powered vessels and charter ships. CMA CGM is headquartered in France, with offices in Ireland and India.
Founded: 1946
CEVA Logistics offers comprehensive logistics services. Its menu of services includes span supply chain management, IoT technology integrations, contract warehousing and fulfillment and freight management across air, ground, rail and ocean routes. CEVA also provides industry-specific services to the healthcare, automotive and retail sectors.
Founded: 1996
Headquartered in New Hampshire, AutoStore is a warehouse automation provider in the logistics sector. It offers an automated storage and retrieval system that uses robots, robotic process automations and a proprietary storage grid system to store goods at various stages of their movement through the supply chain. The cubic layout of the AutoStore warehouse paradigm allows for maximization of space, while its automations support 24/7 precision access. The company has an office in Lyon.
Founded: 2015
Stuart is an on-demand logistics provider that operates a marketplace platform for last-mile delivery. This service brings goods through the “last mile,” of their journey through the supply chain, delivering them to the intended customer. Stuart works with a network of independent couriers to provide this service to the retail, e-commerce and hospitality industries. The company is headquartered in Paris, with offices in London and Barcelona.
Founded: 2024
Flexis SAS designs and provides electric vans along with B2B digital services and solutions for urban delivery. The company’s offerings center on an electric light commercial vehicle platform that utilizes telematics. Flexis SAS is headquartered in France. Its all-electric vans will be manufactured at the Renault Group Sandouville plant in France, with production planned to begin in 2026.
Founded: 1985
HERE Technologies is a specialty provider of location technology services. It builds IoT devices and the software tools that interface with them to monitor the location and movement of assets within the global supply chain. The company focuses on vehicle fleet and shipping container cargo tracking, which it performs using geolocation data analysis within IoT networks. These processes provide the company with raw operational data that it analyzes to generate predictive insights into routing. The global company, headquartered in Amsterdam, has an office in Paris.
Founded: 1871
Cencora is a pharmaceutical solutions company that offers end-to-end services to the pharma and biotech sectors. Its work focuses on establishing distribution networks for pharmaceuticals, with services that span the life sciences, manufacturing and logistics sectors. Its product and ingredient distribution protocols rely on a global network of logistics and warehouse providers and a specialty packaging division that prepares products for the demands of transport. The company has two offices in France, one in Gennevilliers and the other in Marseille.
Founded: 2019
The marine logistics provider Searoutes builds software programs that optimize maritime shipping routes. With the goal of decreasing carbon emissions while also increasing efficiency, the company’s algorithmic routing systems use data and predictive analytics to generate real-time recommendations. These analyses aim to factor in disparate considerations such as weather patterns, political unrest and global demand within the supply chain. The company is headquartered in Marseille.
Founded: 1904
Headquartered in France, GEODIS is a long-established logistics provider founded over a century ago. It offers freight forwarding, road transport and contract logistics across a service zone of nearly 170 countries. It also runs cargo planes with freight capacities of up to 61 tons and manages close to 10 million square meters of warehouse space.
