Inauguration of the first in-company Comptoir Café Joyeux

The first “Inside” Café Joyeux Counter opens its doors today within the headquarters of CANAL+ Group, making it the first company in France to welcome this unique concept. This initiative demonstrates CANAL+ Group’s deep commitment to inclusion, diversity and equality.

Café Joyeux's mission is to promote the inclusion of people with disabilities through work, professional training and interaction. In France, more than 750,000 people have a mental disability, and barely 0.5% of them work in an ordinary environment. The Café Joyeux Counter within CANAL+ Group will provide a job opportunity to 4 happy team members, bringing hope and sharing joy beyond compare.

This launch is a continuation of the documentary series L’Epopée Joyeuse, launched in September on CANAL+. Through 4 episodes, this series produced by Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache follows the lives of men and women who are usually excluded from professional life and who, thanks to Café Joyeux, have landed a permanent contract. To mark European Week for the Employment of People with Disabilities, L’Epopée Joyeuse is available to everyone on myCANAL, starting 23 November. A 5th episode currently being filmed will be broadcast next year.

Maxime Saada, Chairman of CANAL+ Group, comments: “We’re honoured to be pioneers in this adventure, and I’d like to warmly thank Yann and Lydwine Bucaille, the visionaries behind Café Joyeux, for their commitment. They are changing the way we look at disability and difference, and we’re proud to offer their teams a space where diversity is a strength, where every talent finds its place. As the leading French audiovisual group, we have a special responsibility to highlight, through our programmes, inspiring initiatives and project leaders who are working towards a more inclusive, diverse and equitable society. We also aim to guarantee that our programmes are accessible to as many people as possible.”

Yann and Lydwine Bucaille, founders of Café Joyeux, add: "That a media outlet such as CANAL+ is interested in Café Joyeux today is an incredible opportunity: their influence through their power and freedom of information can only have a valuable impact in highlighting all our employees, and especially our happy team members, who have mental or cognitive disabilities. We’re counting on CANAL+ to help us promote our "unlike the rest" café-restaurants and so develop employment for people with mental disabilities, as well as help make our society ever more humane by changing the way we look at people who are different, which is our second mission but just as essential."

Picture credit : Mat Ninat Studio / CANAL+

ABOUT CANAL+ GROUP CANAL+ Group, a subsidiary of Vivendi, is a major player in the creation and distribution of content worldwide, with 25,5 million subscribers, a presence in more than 50 countries and 7 600 employees on every continent. CANAL+ Group has 9,5 million subscribers in France and 7,6 million in Africa. It is the leading television operator in French-speaking Africa and the largest shareholder in MultiChoice, the leader in pay-TV in English and Portuguese-speaking Africa. CANAL+ Group is a major player in the production and marketing of television channels, with 130 linear and non-linear channels produced in-house. It aggregates major thematic channels and global content platforms such as Netflix, Disney+, Paramount+, Apple TV+ and DAZN. With 3.5 billion euros invested in content each year, it is a key player in sport (main funder in France of football and rugby), films (leading funder in France and Poland), and series (including more than 50 original series per year in more than 15 languages). With the support of its subsidiary STUDIOCANAL, which owns 14 production companies, including 13 in Europe and one in the United States, CANAL+ Group is the leading producer and distributor of feature films and TV series in Europe. It holds a catalogue of more than 8 000 titles from more than 60 countries. Finally, it is also a key player in digital with its CANAL+/myCANAL app, whose international deployment is accelerating, with a presence in some thirty countries to date.

ABOUT CAFE JOYEUX In 2017, Joyeux, served with love, was born in Rennes, France, the first solidarity café-restaurant that employs and trains people with mental and cognitive disabilities. Founded by Yann and Lydwine Bucaille, this inclusive solidarity concept aims to make disability visible, promote interaction, and so offer more and more work to people excluded from employment. Thirteen café-restaurants are operating across France, in Rennes, Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon, Tours, Montpellier and Nantes, as well as 3 in Europe, in Lisbon, Brussels and Cascais. In 2018, Café Joyeux launched an eponymous brand of exceptional coffees available as beans, capsules and ground. In addition to this range of speciality coffees, in 2023, Café Joyeux is launching a new range of single-origin coffee available only in large and medium-sized stores. 154 team members are currently employed under standard law contracts in France and internationally.

CONTACTS

CANAL+ Group : Olivia Abehassera / olivia.abehassera@canal-plus.com / 01 71 35 19 66

CAFE JOYEUX :

Edwige de France / Direction de la communication Café Joyeux / edwige@cafejoyeux.com / 06 11 44 67 67

Marie Boguet / Chargée de communication RP / marie.boguet@cafejoyeux.com / 07 56 34 26 12