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Most shops in France are closed due to crown lock, everything is only available online. Therefore, businessmen and politicians are calling for a “Christmas without Amazon” and demanding additional taxes for the “beneficiaries of the crisis.”
Not a single gift from Amazon should be placed under the Christmas tree, 120 politicians, merchants, environmental activists and writers demanded in an online petition. Another requires that digital corporation sales and notorious tax evasion be additionally taxed.
The American online mail order giant is fast becoming the nation’s favorite enemy in France. “Amazon makes a profit while many small businesses are in trouble,” says economist Henri Sterdyniak, justifying the demand for an additional tax.
The confinement as a good business
Since October 30, France has been locked up for the second time to fight the virus. All stores that do not offer basic products have been closed. And this time, supermarkets also have to close the shelves with toys, clothes or books for competitive reasons.
That makes e-commerce attractive, and market leader Amazon was able to increase sales by 40 to 50 percent in November alone. A nuisance to countless merchants facing bankruptcy despite billions in financial injections from the government. Frédéric Duval, director of Amazon France, points out that the American company employs 9,300 people in France. “One unskilled job at Amazon, often low paying, destroys two higher paying jobs at smaller companies,” Sterdyniak says.
Small business market
But Amazon is also a market for around 11,000 French small and micro businesses. “Without Amazon, we wouldn’t even exist,” emphasizes Laure Dufour. Together with her husband and cartoonist, she runs the “Ticky Tacky” stationery boutique. They sell their creative Christmas wish cards, stickers and packages, which are designed with great attention to detail, to young and old in the online shipping market.
This also finds no mercy in the eyes of the economist: “Amazon is like an octopus. The company makes its platform available to retailers, but tends to gradually replace its products with its own products. “It’s about time Sterdyniak put an end to the growing monopoly. With a global digital tax, the giants should be asked industry like Google, Facebook, Apple or Amazon to pay, however there is still no international consensus on this, and it should be a topic again at the virtual G20 meeting tomorrow Saturday.
Holiday sales in danger
What’s further fueling the anti-Amazon mood in France is the upcoming “Black Friday” trading day on November 27. Although infection rates and hospital admissions are slowly declining, the government considers a quick “lockdown” unwise. Stores run the risk of being closed until December. However, in the face of this headwind, Amazon shows its understanding: the American company is ready to postpone the battle of discounts for a week.
