At his veterinary practice near the French city of Lyon one morning in June, Gilles Renevier prepared to perform a castration on a poodle. When not attending to animals, he turns to his other role: attempting to neuter the expansion ambitions of Amazon.
Renevier leads a group of local volunteers that has succeeded in suspending construction at a site that campaigners and a senior local official say is earmarked to become a logistics hub for the online retailer. Building at the site is on hold while a legal challenge the vet helped spearhead makes its way through the courts.
In France, disparate anti-Amazon forces – including local activists, environmentalists, trade unions and members of parliament – are coming together to battle the world’s largest online retailer. In some instances, they have received funding from some of the world’s wealthiest philanthropists. The aim: to stop the e-commerce giant from expanding its presence arguing the U.S.-based company destroys retail jobs, exploits workers and harms the environment – arguments Amazon rejects.
Amazon opponents scored a high-profile victory in April when, following a separate legal challenge brought by trade union workers and backed by environmental lobby group Friends of the Earth, a French court ruled the firm was not adequately protecting its employees from COVID-19. Amazon, which disputed the court’s findings, responded by closing its French warehouses and distribution centres for 35 days. The company has since agreed a deal with unions and re-opened the hubs, but the ruling has emboldened the company’s critics elsewhere – including in the United States.
Renevier, a silver-haired 59-year old, is the unpaid head of a group of local campaigners called Fracture that along with another local group – and with backing from Friends of the Earth – is trying to stop Amazon expanding its footprint in France’s south east. Before dealing with his surgical list that June morning, he stopped by the empty construction site.
The vet, who lives 14 kilometres from the site, said he was concerned about the traffic and pollution an Amazon logistics hub would cause and believed that Amazon promoted a consumerist way of life that was harmful to society.
“How are we going to reduce the pollution when you have a big operation like this, with so many vehicles that are going to be circulating around it?” he said. He added that he didn’t shop at Amazon.com and was trying – so far unsuccessfully – to persuade his adult son to stop doing so.
Amazon representatives declined to comment on whether the firm was connected to the Lyon site or on the activities of the company’s opponents.
The representatives said the company was good for the environment because its distribution model was more efficient than traditional retail, and therefore involved fewer miles travelled and less pollution. They said the company’s business model complements, rather than destroys, bricks and mortar retail and that it works closely with small French firms who use Amazon’s logistics network. They also said the company generates thousands of jobs, directly and indirectly.
