French parliamentarians have voted through an amendment to ban publicity campaigns for “Black Friday” sales as protestors stormed dozens of businesses across the country.
The amendment, which was adopted earlier this week, is part of France’s “anti-waste law” and slammed Black Friday for glorifying consumerism and consumption while having negative effects on the environment, Euronews reports.
French independent MP Matthieu Orphelin, a former member of President Emmanuel Macron’s Le Republic En Marche! (LREM), took to Twitter to say Black Friday sales mislead costumers into thinking they are getting better deals than in the regular sales periods.
The amendment did not affect this year’s Black Friday which saw protesters from the climate change alarmist Extinction Rebellion occupy and block a number of shops across the country to protest the shopping event.
Protesters in Paris entered the 4 Temps shopping centre in La Défense early in the morning and protesters proceeded to occupy several shops over the course of the day, including the Apple store which was forced to close for several hours.
In Brétigny-sur-Orge, dozens of activists blocked the entrance to the Amazon distribution centre on Thursday afternoon until police arrived a short time later to remove the activists.
On Friday morning, protesters turned up at Amazon’s French headquarters in Clichy where they were joined by the head of Greenpeace France, Jean-François Julliard. A hundred or so activists also blocked an Amazon warehouse in Saint-Priest before being removed by police.
On Twitter, climate alarmist activists denounced the police action and released a video of officers attempting to dislodge protestors.
Amazon faced similar pressures last year when workers in Spain engaged in a walkout on Black Friday over working conditions, with one worker commenting: “It is one of the days that Amazon has most sales, and these are days when we can hurt more and make ourselves be heard because the company has not listened to us and does not want to reach any agreement.”