Victory for the defenders of the environment! Amazon’s 76,000 m² warehouse will ultimately not be able to be built in Fontaine, a town in the Territoire-de-Belfort, west of Mulhouse, in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region. The administrative court of Besançon has indeed revoked the building permit for the building, reports this Thursday, March 31 the Parisian† The court was seized in July 2020 by Les Amis de la Terre and France Nature Environnement, two environmental associations.
In order to justify its judgment, the court stated that the file, which was conducted on behalf of Amazon by the company Vailog France in the context of obtaining the building permit and the environmental permit “did not contain any compensatory measure for the disappearance of the wetland affected by the project”†
The building, 360 meters long and 175 meters wide, as prescribed by the French daily, cannot therefore be built. It is a small victory over the web giant for the town of Fontaine, which already has an Amazon logistics platform of 10,000 m². This is a strategic point in the region. In this space, “400 van-style vehicles” can drive “on the roads of the Grand Est and Bourgogne-Franche-Comté”, explains the mayor of the city to Pierre Fietier, on the Parisian† “They are brought in by trucks that come at night to deliver the packages. †
“The cancellation of this project is a huge victory for the climate, the environment and jobs! †, Friends of the Earth responded on Twitter. “This 76,000m2 sorting center project would have artificially created a 13-hectare wetland and agricultural area without measures being taken to protect biodiversity. The association also recalls that the construction of other Amazon warehouses in France was canceled in France after the intervention of environmentalists.
This decision reminds us that the actions of associations can have a direct impact on the establishment (or not) of multinationals in our territories.