This summer, the online sales giant Amazon is expected to open a huge warehouse near the city of Metz, in eastern France.

The American company has ensured the creation of 1,000 permanent jobs within three years in this "distribution center" located on a former air base. 

The American online sales giant Amazon has planned to open "in the summer of 2021" a large warehouse located in the metropolis of Metz, and on Tuesday promised the creation of 1,000 permanent jobs within three years. The "distribution center", Amazon's terminology for very large warehouses, will be located on the former air base on the Frescaty plateau, located in the town of Augny, south of Metz. It represents an area "of 50,000 m2 on the ground, optimized on 4 levels", according to a press release from the American giant.

Amazon, which anticipates "14,500 employees on permanent contracts in France" at the end of 2021, "has already started recruiting for this site, in particular for managerial and maintenance technician positions to be filled now".

"The recruitment campaign which is opening marks the culmination of a project carried out hand in hand with local players for several years", pleaded in the press release Ronan Bolé, director of Amazon Logistics in France.

Elected officials favorable to the arrival of Amazon 

Among the local elected officials cited in the Amazon press release, Cédric Gouth, vice-president of Metz Métropole and mayor of Woippy, where Amazon opened a delivery agency in 2019, explains that the favorable opinion of elected officials for this establishment "has The main objective is to prepare the job pool to seize this opportunity in terms of direct jobs and indirect jobs ".

This site is Amazon's eighth distribution center in France, after Saran near Orleans, Montélimar in Drôme, Sevrey near Chalon-sur-Saône, Lauwin-Planque near Lille, Boves near Amiens, Brétigny- sur-Orge in Essonne and Senlis in Oise.

About sixty people, from political parties and associations, as well as residents, demonstrated against this establishment in January 2020