Demos and deals as Black Friday frenzy grips Europe
Climate activists staged protests across Europe yesterday to denounce the environmental toll of mass consumption, while shoppers hit the streets and the internet as retailers of all stripes touted pre-holiday bargains.
The American “Black Friday” tradition of a post-Thanksgiving day of deals has taken hold in Europe as a long weekend of sales, alarming critics who say it encourages unbridled and wasteful spending.
This year, activists have targeted the climate costs of frenzied shopping, in particular from delivering the millions of items ordered from Amazon and other online retailers.
French NGOs had pledged a “Black Day for Amazon,” with protesters blocking a distribution centre outside Paris on Thursday, and others near Lyon and Lille yesterday.
The Extinction Rebellion campaign group posted on Twitter images of protesters being forcibly removed by police from the Lyon site.
“Amazon today emits as much greenhouse gases as a country,” Jean-Francois Julliard, head of Greenpeace France, said at a sit-in at Amazon’s headquarters just north of Paris yesterday.
Activists formed human chains to prevent shoppers from entering stores at La Defense business district west of Paris as well as in the central city of Saint-Etienne and the town of Roanne.
In Strasbourg, activists plastered storefronts with anti-consumerist messages such as “Black Friday: A bad deal for the environment” and poured glue into door locks, delaying the opening of dozens of stores.
Sylvain Truc, a member of Youth for Climate protesting in Marseille, called Black Friday “the symbol of what we’re trying to fight.”
Despite the protests, many retailers across Europe reported brisk Black Friday business.
Comments