Hundreds rally in French towns over Amazon

AFP

Hundreds rallied in several French towns on Saturday in protests against Amazon called by anti-capitalist and environmental groups, including at one site where the US e-commerce giant plans a massive warehouse.

Amazon plans to set up a 38,000-square-meter facility in the small southern town of Fournes near the Pont du Gard, a Roman aqueduct bridge that is a World Heritage site.

While police said around 800 protesters took part in the protest there, organizers said 1,400 turned up. The protesters planted shrubs in front of huge banners reading “Stop Amazon” and “Not here or anywhere.”

They formed a human chain to show the size of the project, floating multicolored balloons 18 meters up to indicate the height of the planned five-storey facility.

Sarah Latour, 38, came with her two sons aged 8 and 6, and the family planted a shrub in waste ground, where vines had once grown.

“These plants, these shrubs ... are a symbol of life that contrasts with the concreting that Amazon practices,” she said.

“I came with my children because I don’t want this destructive model for them.”

About 200 people also rallied outside an Amazon facility in Carquefou, a suburb of the western city of Nantes.

“We condemn Amazon for destroying more jobs than they create, and that these are insecure jobs,” said Sophie Jallier, a spokesperson for the organizers in Carquefou.

In the eastern town of Ensisheim, about 100 people gathered to protest a plan to build a giant warehouse on a 15-hectare site of former agricultural land. Banners read “Amazon, Fiscal Vampire” and “No mega warehouse.”

Other protests were held in Augny, in the eastern Moselle region, and in Perpignan in the south.

Amazon France issued a statement saying it had “become the target of certain organizations that want to make the causes they represent known.”