An Amazon Rival in France Awaits New Europe Regulations

On Tuesday, Europe’s main antitrust authority in Brussels plans to unveil sweeping new proposals aimed partly at preventing digital gatekeepers like Amazon from crushing much smaller competitors. Emmanuel Grenier is exactly the kind of business executive the new rules could help.

Last month, Europe’s top competition official, Margrethe Vestager, name-dropped Cdiscount—the French online retailer Grenier runs—at a press conference held to unveil antitrust charges against Amazon, saying she had recently made a purchase from the Cdiscount site. The new competition rules Vestager is expected to announce this week, combined with the antitrust case, could provide checks on Amazon’s growing power—welcome news for Grenier.

“I think that the rules the European Commission is going to build are very important,” he said in a recent interview with The Information. “The main rule is equality for everybody.”