“We must temporarily suspend activities in our distribution centers in France,” Amazon’s French branch said in a statement to The Washington Post, “despite the huge investment that we have made to ensure and strengthen by additional measures the safety of our employees who remained mobilized during this crisis.

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“Considering the complexity inherent in our logistics activities and the fine of one million euros per infraction imposed by the court, the risk of contravening the decision was too high.”

The company said it would continue to serve French customers through third parties that sell on its platform and distribute goods independently.

Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Post.

President Emmanuel Macron ordered the temporary closure, starting March 17, of all businesses in France, save for essential services such as food stores and pharmacies. Online deliveries, however, were allowed to continue, which meant that Amazon could keep selling goods beyond basic essentials.

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But union representatives complained that Amazon was not obeying the spirit of France’s lockdown and that employees were risking their safety to ship consumers items they did not immediately need. Several Amazon employees in France have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

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“We feel really unsafe, and I’ve got colleagues who are coming to work feeling fearful,” Richard Vives, a representative of France’s CAT union, told the Reuters news agency in March during a protest outside an Amazon warehouse in the town of Saran in central France.

Amazon’s practices have drawn the repeated criticism of France’s labor minister, Muriel Pénicaud, who said last month that the company’s protection measures were “insufficient.” In early April, Pénicaud said the conditions at four Amazon sites in France failed to meet social distancing guidelines and that she had given them three days to comply.

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“Protecting its employees is not negotiable in a company; it’s an obligation,” she said.

Amazon has vowed to appeal this week’s ruling, disputing the court’s claim that the company “has obviously disregarded its obligation to ensure the safety and health of its employees,” according to a copy of the ruling seen by Agence France-Presse.

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The court’s decision, Amazon’s French branch said in an earlier statement on Wednesday, left the company “perplexed” and was made “despite the concrete evidence provided on the security measures that we have implemented.”

Amazon said that those security measures “include temperature controls, the distribution of masks and enhanced social distancing” and had been previously approved by “health and safety experts” who had visited Amazon sites.

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Still, the company said it would ask all distribution center employees in France to stay at home this week while it worked out a long-term solution.