The French campaigners are constantly winning support in the courts to block the construction plans of Amazon.com Inc.’s distribution facilities in the nation. Four major logistics hubs have been blocked by the committees in the period of last six months or have been abandoned on the ground of economical, ecological or political opposition by the locals.

The most recent backlash for the company came on Thursday by the court of Besancon, which invalidated the permission that was granted to the constructor Vailog for a site that was near the city of Belfort. This invalidation followed opposition from other groups as well including the France Nature Environment and Friends of the Earth. The judgement of the court stated that the project with an area of 76,200 sq meter ‘does not include compensatory measures to balance the destruction of wetlands’, due to which the permission was invalidated. Commenting on this, the spokesperson for the constructor Vailog said that it would be too soon for them to say if they will drop the project.

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Campaigners like friends of the earth, Stop Amazon and Attac look at the e-commerce giant as a harmful aspect to the environment.

Alongside, Amazon said that this logistic site and the development was a long-term investment for the company and thus, they are not wondering about future plans. The mayor said that a warehouse with an area of 160,000 sq meters is located near Rouen in Normandy, on a former oil refinery, which is an abandoned property by property developer Gazeley. The project was withdrawn because of major opposition from groups like friends of the earth. Another facility construction with an area of 185,000 sq meters was cancelled in October after the protests from the campaign groups mentioned.

According to the officials of the Nantes region, the cumulation of technical and legal constraints led to the decision. Another delivery hub was blocked in the South of France, which was covering an area of 38,000 sq meters after developer Argan came up with a decision not to engage in the cancellation of its permit request for the environment by the local opposition group. The complications are still likely to cause damage to the border expansion of Amazon in France. The company currently has four major warehouses in France and is also planning to develop two automated ones in Metz and Paris.

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Four major logistics hubs of Amazon have been blocked by the committees in the last six months.

The financial repercussions caused by the cancellation of building work will be negligible for the company as it rents land from property developers and does not build the property to own them. The major aspect that will be affecting the same would be the cumulation of regional opposition that mainly targets Amazon.

The campaigners look at the construction and e-commerce giants as the symbol of globalization that would harm the environment as well as the local economy. Campaigners like friends of the earth, Stop Amazon and Attac are on the list. The challenge faced by Amazon in France is now echoed in the neighbouring countries. Meta Platforms Inc had mentioned that in the month of March, they had to pause the construction in the Netherlands for the big data centre due to the opposition they had to face over the consumption capacity of the renewable energy by hyper-scale data centres.