French authorities deny expansion of a Zara store on suspicion of forced labor

The authorities of the French city of Bordeaux they denied Zara France the expansion of a store due to an ongoing investigation into the possible recourse of Inditex, the parent company of the brand, to the forced labor of Uyghurs in Chinamembers of an administrative commission said Monday.

Zara France wanted to double the surface of one of its stores in the center of Bordeaux to go from 1,098 m2 to 2,070 m2.

But on November 9, the Departmental Commission for Business Development (CDAC), in charge of examining the request, issued an “unfavorable opinion” on the bill, with three votes against, one in favor and six abstentions.

The three members who vetoed the project cited the existence of an ongoing judicial investigation into suspicions that Inditex subcontractors used Uighur forced labor in China.

“It is a political decision that we accept. We wanted to give a strong signal rejecting the expansion of businesses that do not have enough control over their subcontractors,” he said Alain Garnier, one of the members of the commission.

The investigation, opened in June by the crimes against humanity unit of the French antiterrorist prosecutor’s office, is based on a complaint filed in April by the anti-corruption association Sherpa, the Ethique sur l’étiquette collective, the Uyghur Institute of Europe (IODE) and a Uighur woman who had been interned in the Chinese province of Xinjiang (northwest).

Sandrine Jacotot, Bordeaux’s deputy mayor for commerce, said that “it is now up to Zara to appeal this decision to the national commission for commercial development to explain how the company respects these criteria.”