Ahead of the "Gen Z regelt" protests, fashion retailers board up their windows
Before Saturday's nationwide youth protests in Germany, fashion and luxury retailers are taking precautions: facades on Düsseldorf's Kö are boarded up, Douglas closes twelve stores, Apropos closes early.
Photo: Kürschner (talk) 17:38, 24 November 2024 (UTC) / Wikimedia Commons, CC0 (cropped and resized)
Video: YouTube · tagesschau · youtube.com
Ahead of the protests announced by the "Gen Z regelt" movement for Saturday, 31 October, fashion and luxury retailers in several German city centres are taking precautions. According to FashionUnited, facades on Düsseldorf's Königsallee and in other cities are being covered with wooden boards and scaffolding, and some shops are clearing their windows. Perfumery chain Douglas is keeping twelve stores closed, jeweller Wempe is temporarily closing its shops, and fashion retailer Apropos will close in Berlin, Düsseldorf and Cologne at 4 pm instead of 7 pm. "None of us knows what is coming," Andrea Greuner of the Königsallee retailers' association told the dpa news agency, as reported by t-online.
Trade associations HDE, ZIA and GCSP asked Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt in a letter for a "visible and adequately sized police presence". The background is the unrest in France, where, according to FashionUnited, sales in affected city centres fell by up to 80 percent on the past two Saturdays and more than 2,500 shops were damaged. The organisers stress, per WirtschaftsWoche: "Our protest is peaceful, without exception." The tagesschau video gives an overview of the weekend's protests.