Marks & Spencer will close 7 stores in France – Le Parisien

Anear 10-year absence, the chain of distribution from the united kingdom had made a great comeback in France in 2011. Marks & Spencer has announced this Tuesday that he would close hundreds of stores around the world, including 7 in France, which employ alone more than 500 people.

In France, this measure relates to all of the shops directly managed by the brand in the food and clothing in Paris and the paris region, including the sign of the Champs-Elysées, which employs 80 people.

the other Six stores are concerned. Those in the centre commercial Beaugrenelle, Paris, centre commercial So Ouest in Levallois-Perret (Hauts-de-Seine), the shopping centre Aéroville in Tremblay-en-France (Seine-Saint-Denis) and Villeneuve-la Garenne (Hauts-de-Seine). The last two are located rue de la Chaussée d’antin and to the gare Saint-Lazare in Paris. The sign said, however, that his eleven food store franchise, which were also located in the paris region would remain open.

The first closures in November 2017

In its press release, Marks & Spencer explains that he will “initiate a consultation process with staff representative bodies” about the closures announced. A spokesperson clarified that this process should take between twelve and 18 months”.

“Since the return of Marks & Spencer on the French market in 2011, the own stores are loss-making: for 2015/16 the loss amounted to 19 million pounds (26 million euros),” said the chain, which has also announced the closure Tuesday morning on the occasion of a central committee of extraordinary company, said it learned of the source of association in France. The first closures are planned in a year, in November 2017, said Yasin Leguet, representative of the Seci-Unsa, the majority union in the company.

The group expects the total to close 53 stores in the world (excluding the United Kingdom). In addition to France, the stores that will be closed are located in China (10 stores), Belgium and seven other european countries. In the past year, all of the stores managed directly by Marks and Spencer in these ten countries have lost a total of 45 million pounds (50 million euros, after the translation published by M&S) for a turnover of 171 million pounds (190 million euros). M&S announced that it would close in the United Kingdom sixty additional stores, specializing in clothing and domestic equipment, in the next five years.

The M&S “Simply Food”, a priority

The new director of the group, Steve Rowe, arrived in the beginning of the year to revive the brand, stressed that he wanted to focus on the food. M&S will open some 200 new stores, “Simply Food”, so specializing in this field, by the spring of 2019.

one of them has opened its doors on the 19th of October, in the new marché Saint-Germain, Paris (Vi).