Jan Heere

Marks & Spencer’s International Director, Jan Heere, has confirmed that the brand is planning to open three additional stores in France.

The locations of the planned stores have not yet been revealed. Jan Heere notably did not comment upon the brand’s interest in a retail unit at number 144 rue de Rivoli, just opposite the Samaritaine department store – for which it would face competition from the American brand, Forever 21.

These three new stores follow on from the opening of a Marks & Spencer shop on the Champs-Elysées, in Paris’s 8th arrondissement, at the end of 2011, and the opening of two more stores in the coming months – at So Ouest (Levallois-Perret) at the end of 2012, and a flagship store at Beaugrenelle (in Paris’s 15th arrondissement) in 2013.

Marks & Spencer’s “outlets” will not be arriving in France just yet, though. Their “outlets” network, which at present only counts 50 locations in the UK, has recently been extended to the internet – but it seems that this development, however, is not a prelude to further expansion.