Paris authorities have threatened to take legal action over Amazon’s new express delivery service, claiming it could force local shops out of business.

The Socialist mayor, Anne Hidalgo, has vowed to take an “uncompromising” approach to Amazon’s Prime Now service that offers one-hour delivery on a range of products including groceries.

Officials fear the service, which operates in 40 cities including New York, London and Rome, could upset the French capital’s “commercial equilibrium”. They also claim they were told about the Paris service only days before it launched last week.

Hidalgo said she was urging legislators to examine Amazon’s delivery service to see whether safeguards could be drawn up to prevent it harming independent traders.



Paris city hall has also said it will look out for unwanted side-effects of the operation, including increased traffic and pollution.

Hidalgo said: “This operation risks seriously upsetting the commercial balance in Paris. This large American company did not see fit to inform Paris until a few days before the launch.”

She said there was a need to “define by law, the protections in order to prevent such services becoming an unfair competition to shopkeepers and artisans. Paris will be intransigent vis-a-vis Amazon.”

An Amazon employee at the Prime Now warehouse in Paris. Photograph: Eric Piermont/AFP/Getty

Amazon is offering to deliver more than 18,000 products including electrical items and fresh or frozen fruit and vegetables to subscribers of its Premium service, which costs €49 (£38) a year and promises to arrive within two hours. For an extra €5.90, goods will be delivered within an hour.

Items are dispatched from a 4,000 sq metre warehouse in the 18th arrondissement, which was unveiled during Thursday’s launch. The warehouse employs 70 staff.



Speaking to French radio, Olivia Polski, one of Paris’s deputy mayors, said the service was a direct threat to local shops. “At first sight it can seem very good news to have a new shopping service, except that it’s not a real shop and is not under the same constraints as over businesses,” she said, adding that the service was not subject to the same taxes and competition rules as physical shops.

She said the Amazon warehouse would also “cause a very significant nuisance for local residents, and real issues on deliveries and road clogging”.



This is not the first time French authorities have taken umbrage at the retailer’s activities. In 2013, the then culture minister, Aurélie Filippetti, accused the company of being a “destroyer of bookshops” because of its discounted prices and free delivery.

France has a book pricing policy that allows a maximum 5% discount to protect independent booksellers. In 2014, after the government passed a law banning Amazon from offering free deliveries, the company announced it would charge customers one centime for books sent to their homes.

The activities of another multinational offering quick and convenient services – the car hire app Uber – has also raised the hackles of authorities in Paris in recent months. The company has faced fines, legal challenges and its drivers physical violence since it began operating in the city in 2012.



