While shoppers in the U.S. line up to take advantage of Black Friday discounts, activists in France have staged sit-ins outside Amazon.com Inc.’s French headquarters and logistics center to denounce the occasion imported from America, reports Bloomberg.
Dozens of anti-capitalist/environmental campaigners protested outside the headquarters in Clichy, northwest of Paris, and temporarily blocked two logistics depots in Northern France and Lyon, before being dislodged by the police. They blame Amazon as a symbol of the advent of Black Friday in France, a push for consumerism that they say contributes to hurting the planet.
European retailers have followed the U.S. tradition of making Black Friday -- the day after U.S. Thanksgiving -- the kickoff to the holiday shopping season. The trend first reached the U.K. around the start of the decade when local chains responded to Amazon’s post-Thanksgiving discounts, and then moved to continental Europe. French and German retailers have stepped up their participation over the past few years.
The protests in France were part a broader wave of climate-related demonstrations around the world.