French retailers including Amazon agree to postpone Black Friday

Black Friday sales signs in a shop in Caen from 2019

Credit: SAMEER AL-DOUMY /AFP 

Amazon and other major retailers have agreed to postpone Black Friday in France after the government came under intense pressure from local shopkeepers to end their enforced closure before the discount bonanza begins.

Amazon has seen sales soar worldwide as it picks up the slack from bricks-and-mortar shops selling non-essential goods that have been ordered to remain shut to stem the spread of the coronavirus.  

With French shopkeepers furious at the ongoing curbs, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire this week urged supermarkets and online retailers to postpone Black Friday, which runs from November 27-29, out of a “spirit of respect”.

Eager to keep shoppers from besieging stores in search of potential discounts, he argued that a one-week delay would help ensure physical shops reopen in France under maximum safety conditions while benefiting from the sales splurge.

After talks on Friday at the ministry, retailers including Amazon, Carrefour, Galeries Lafayette and Leclerc said they had “unanimously” agreed to delay Black Friday until December 4 “on condition that stores open in the meantime”.

The group has taken the brunt of criticism against on-line stores in France, with some 30,000 people signing an online petition to boycott the group. Amazon France Chief Executive Frederic Duval hit back, saying: “A lot of people use our name to get noticed, but Amazon makes up only 1 per cent of retail in France.”

President Emmanuel Macron has said France’s second national lockdown, which started on October 30, would last at least four weeks. Currently, all non-essential stores, restaurants and bars are closed.

However, pressure has been building to re-open physical stores due to data suggesting cases are decreasing.

France may now be past the worst of its second wave of coronavirus infections, the country’s health agency said on Friday, although it warned that protective measures should be kept in place all the same.

Thanks to curfews and lockdowns, confirmed new infections dropped 40 per cent last week, admissions to hospital fell 13 per cent, and the number of new intensive care patients was down 9 per cent, according to Sante Publique France.

"Although indicators are still at high levels, they suggest that the peak of the second peak is behind us," the agency said.

The number of Covid deaths has stabilised after several weeks of increases, the agency added, with 3,756 recorded fatalities compared with 3,817 a week earlier.

The data provided fresh ammunition for shop owners who have been lobbying to be allowed to reopen for the crucial Christmas period, when many retailers make the bulk of their annual turnover.

In a boost to florists, the French government this week allowed sales of Christmas trees to go ahead from Friday.

Striking an optimistic note, Prime Minister Jean Castex on Friday said that the country was “on the right track” to be able to reopen all small stores by December 1 as long as the epidemic continued to wane.

Until then, new measures have been outlined for stores to put in place to avoid contamination, including halving the number of customers allowed in at any one time.

Mr Macron is due to address France next Tuesday night about loosening the current lockdown and the timetable for re-opening shops, restaurants and even ski resorts, according to government sources.