Marks and Spencer to close 100+ shops worldwide, 7 in France
British retailer Marks and Spencer is to close more than 100 shops worldwide, including seven in France. The M&S store on Paris's Champs Elysées is scheduled for the chop, hardly five years after opening as part of a return of the company to French soil.
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Marks and Spencer has announced plans to close 53 loss-making outlets in 10 countries around the world and about 60 in the UK.
For several years the company has had problems with sales of clothes, shoes and home appliances and all of its shops that sell both food and clothes in France are to close.
As well as the Champs Elysées shop, which employs 80 people, that means one at the recently opened Beaugrenelle shopping centre in south Paris and others in Levallois-Perret, Tremblay-en-France and Villeneuve-en-Garenne, all in the Paris suburbs.
Two others in Paris's rue de la Chaussée d'Antin and near the Saint Lazare railway station, which only sell food, are marked for closure.
The 11 franchises that only sell food in the Paris region will remain open.
Previous departure from France in 2001
M&S returned to France in 2011 after causing an outcry in 2001 with the announcement of closure of all 18 of its outlets, which employed 1,700 people.
Those shops were bought by French retailer Galéries Lafayette.
The company says it has lost 26 million euros in France since 2011.
Negotiations with unions are to last 12-18 months, a spokesperson told the AFP news agency.
Other countries affected are China, where 10 shops are to shut, Belgium and seven other European countries.
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