Carrefour announced plans to make investments and save more money in order to combat the effects of inflation.

Carrefour (CARR.PA) will leverage its e-commerce channels, open more discount stores, and cut costs to accelerate the turnaround while curb soaring inflation. The French retailer also announced a media joint venture with ad giant Publicis on Tuesday, aiming for cost savings of over 4 billion euros ($4 billion) and net free cash flow of over 1.7 billion euros ($1.7 billion).

To help customers with the soaring cost of living, Carrefour wants to invest more in private-label products and accelerate discount store expansion. This will allow Carrefour to pay a cash dividend and increase it by at least 5% each year while still seizing equity opportunities in the food industry.

Carrefour 2026 is a plan to innovate in markets that are influenced by inflation and climate change. “Confident in the strength of our model, we will invest more in our business and stores, while significantly improving cash flow generation,” said Chairman and CEO Alexandre Bompard in a statement.

At 0730 GMT, Carrefour shares were down 1.3% at 16.35 euros.

Today’s strategy is concerning given the focus on expansion (more stores, more capital expenditure) without taking the action required to simplify the group through market disposals, space reduction, or price competitiveness. After taking over as CEO at Carrefour in July 2017, Alexandre Bompard was reappointed for three more years in May 2021.

Immediately upon joining Carrefour, he had to face the challenge of turning around their entire business in an inflationary environment made worse by the war in Ukraine and without the extra financial resources that would have been on hand if two planned tie-ups last year had not failed. Faced with these problems, his new plan builds on previous goals to triple e-commerce Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) to 10 billion euros in 2026 and a goal of contributing an extra 200 million Euros annually to recurring operating income starting in 2026 as Carrefour looks to stay ahead of Amazon’s growing grocery delivery service.

The partnership with Publicis in retail media will take the form of a joint venture in which Carrefour will hold a 51 percent stake. The media agency will take care of Carrefour’s marketing and advertising (except search advertising).