Hello everyone and welcome to ZD Tech, ZDNet’s daily editorial podcast. My name is Anne Mignard and today I explain to you why Amazon’s warehouse facilities are teetering in France.
I’m not telling you anything, the ogre of Seattle continues to grow all over the world. In France, four years ago, the American group already had five logistics centers, which the company calls distribution centers.
Since then, three new ones have been built. The last born came out of the ground in Augny, near Metz, last September. A warehouse with a total area of 182,000 m2making it Amazon’s largest logistics platform in France.
Nothing therefore seems to be stopping the development of the American giant in its conquest of France. But the tide may well be turning. Because in recent months, the stones in Amazon’s French shoe are starting to pile up.
Pebbles in the shoe
A few days ago, the tech giant suffered another setback near Belfort. The building permit and the environmental authorization for a warehouse project have been canceled by the Besançon administrative court. The reason ? The destruction of a protected wetland.
And this disappointment is far from being the first in France for Amazon.
Last month, it was Amazon itself which would have chosen to give up installing a warehouse of 160,000 m2 in Petit-Couronne, near Rouen. And this, to the great dissatisfaction of local elected officials. And to the delight of environmental opponents of the project.
In December 2021, another warehouse project was abandoned near the Pont du Gard. There, it is the administrative court of Nîmes which decided by not recognizing “the major public interest” of the project. It would also seem that the presence in the surroundings of the southern shrike, a charming protected bird, prevented Amazon from spreading its wings in the Gard.
Two months before, in October of last year, the community of commune of Grand-Lieu, very close to Nantes, had abandoned a project for a logistics platform of 185,000 m2 in the town of Montbert. A surprising decision for elected officials, insofar as Amazon promised the creation of many jobs. But this establishment would have accumulated, I quote, “too many technical and legal constraints”.
Four failures that apparently do not worry Amazon. Its spokespersons even claim that, contrary to what is written in the press, the planned site in Normandy was in fact intended for another brand… a case to follow.