Shoppers took to the streets and scrolled online during the annual Black Friday sales phenomenon as protests were expected around the world over environmental concerns and consumer culture.
The National Retail Federation expects 165 million people shopping in stores and online this weekend as consumers fill their carts with deeply discounted electronics, clothes, home goods and more. Americans spent a record $4.4 billion online on Thanksgiving Day, according to Adobe Analytics. Nearly half of those purchases were purchased on smartphones, up 19 percent from last year.
But as the sales frenzy has grown and expanded beyond the United States, it has also prompted demonstrations from environmental activists as well as anti-consumerism and workers’ rights protests.
Climate strikes were expected to take place in cities across the world Friday, in the latest series of youth-led protests demanding environmental action.
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In France, activists held protested against massive online retailer Amazon and consumerism, with some forming a blockade at a Paris shopping mall.
Dozens of others protested outside an Amazon headquarters in Paris, according to Reuters.
Some demonstrators held up signs saying, “No to Amazon and its world.”
Manon Aubry, a left-wing member of the European Parliament, said on Twitter the protest was intended to “denounce the social, environmental and fiscal damage from Amazon.”
In Germany, workers at Amazon distribution centers have gone on strike for better pay.
Amazon did not immediately respond to request for comment.
In New York City, another group said it planned to convene at a store and push empty shopping carts “in a lengthy chain of non-shoppers,” weaving through the store aisles and inviting shoppers to take a break from the “destructive frenzy of consumerism.”
Environmental group Extinction Rebellion called on potential shoppers to boycott Black Friday and join the planned climate strikes instead, saying the sales tradition “may seem like a bargain” but it’s “costing the Earth.”
“Consumerism is destroying our planet,” the group said in a Thanksgiving Day social media post. “We do not have infinite resources, yet the system continues to persuade us all that we need to constantly buy more of everything.”
And in California, protesters in Santa Monica were expected to boycott Black Friday shopping to demand action in response to climate change.
