General
The French competition watchdog has fined Italian eyewear giant Luxottica 125 million euros for engaging in cartel agreements. The manufacturer is appealing.
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Food
Monop', Groupe Casino's convenience formula, has opened a 'phygital' city store of the latest generation in Paris: it combines sustainability, food service, e-commerce and remarkable services with an unmanned area that remains open 24/7.
Fashion
Gap is to permanently close all 81 stores in the UK and Ireland. The American fashion brand will remain active online.
Carrefour is in the process of critically reviewing its international operations. According to French media, a sale of the Polish and Taiwanese operations is imminent, but the retailer calls the reports premature.
As of tomorrow, the famous luxury department store La Samaritaine will be open to the public again. The official inauguration of the fully renovated complex in the heart of Paris took place yesterday in the presence of French President Emmanuel Macron.
Carrefour is said to be in talks with its Moroccan franchise partner Label'Vie regarding managing some of its so-called ethnic stores: these are supermarkets in neighbourhoods and suburbs with a large Muslim community, in which the French retailer is struggling to make a profit.
Furniture
Ikea has been fined one million euros in France for setting up an espionage system to collect private information on its own staff.
Phenix, the direct competitor of the Danish Too Good to Go, is coming to Belgium. The French company is starting in Brussels but gradually wants to cover the rest of the country as well.
Cosmetics
Groupe J. Bogart, the owner of Planet Parfum and Di! in Belgium, wants to strengthen its position in France by acquiring 41 Nocibé stores.
Dutch online supermarket Picnic is officially launching in France. After a test in Valenciennes under the pseudonym TocToc, the company is now going for a phased roll-out.
In an interview with some regional newspapers, President Emmanuel Macron clarified his exit strategy from the lockdown. On May 19, all stores are allowed to open again.
Colruyt will sell its Parisian stores to competitor Carrefour. In the northeast of the country, the Belgian group will continue to invest in growth.
In Paris, customers of Carrefour can now also have their groceries delivered to their home within half an hour by Deliveroo riders. In Belgium, the collaboration expands to Antwerp and Ghent.
From Saturday, France will again go into a strict lockdown. The measures currently in force in one part of the nation will be extended to the entire country.
A new, huge merger in the luxury sector was on the cards between French Kering and Swiss Richemont, but the latter is said to have rejected the offer.
Yesterday, the 'espionage' trial against Ikea started in France. The French branch of the furniture giant is accused of unlawfully collecting and disclosing personal data, and violating professional confidentiality between 2003 and 2009.
