France Clamps Down on Delivery Depot 'Dark Stores'

smooth wombat writes: France has taken steps to outlaw so-called dark stores - city-centre food depots used for instant home deliveries ordered over the internet. Faced by growing protests from local people as well as city authorities, President Emmanuel Macron's government has decreed that the stores be classified as warehouses, rather than as shops - meaning that in Paris and other cities most will probably be forced to close. Run by half a dozen competing companies such as Gorillas, Cajoo, Getir, Flink and Gopuff, "dark stores" have proliferated in France as elsewhere over the last two years after Covid confinement popularised internet food shopping. Advertising in Paris urges householders to get their food delivered in less than 10 minutes - or "quicker than a double by Benzema," referring to the French football star. A campaign by Cajoo shows "Alex" doing his shopping by smartphone while sitting on the lavatory. But residents of buildings where "dark stores" have replaced pre-existing grocery shops are angry about noise from early morning lorries and the disruption caused by squads of deliverers on electric bicycles and scooters. City officials - who spent millions to safeguard the high street against out-of-town shopping centres - are worried that the new threat from "quick commerce" will drain life from public spaces and hasten the trend to an "atomised" society of solitary consumers.

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