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French clashes over Sunday shopping debate
Sunday, December 21, 2008 By Thomas Hubert in Paris
Thousands of last-minute Christmas shoppers will throng shopping centres throughout France today - but it is a rare sight, confined mainly to December weekends.

Most French retailers are allowed to open only five Sundays every year, but controversial proposed legislation could relax those rules.

Since 2006, several politicians have tried to ease the ban on Sunday shopping, but their bills were always defeated. This time, however, the proposed text received the backing of president Nicolas Sarkozy.

‘‘It is an extra day of growth, it is extra purchasing power and other countries are doing it,” he said recently.

Over the past few months, he has repeatedly cited the absurd consequences of the current legislation: consumers leaving northern France en masse every Sunday to shop in Belgium, or the Champs-Élysées in Paris where one side of the street is considered a tourist zone with relaxed Sunday opening rules, while the other side is not.

Sarkozy’s idea of countering the economic downturn by allowing all willing employees to work Sundays for extra cash is facing fierce opposition, not only from the trade unions and the left, which has filed more than 4,000 amendments of the five articles of the bill, but also from the ranks of the UMP majority party.

As a result, MPs working on the text have watered it down significantly. The bill now on the table increases the number of municipal authorisations for exceptional openings from five to a mere eight Sundays per year.

Relaxed rules will apply in designated tourist areas and in the country’s four largest cities, especially Lille, which is on the Belgian border. But the bill restricts seven day opening to locations where ‘‘an exceptional weekend consumption pattern’’ is established - in other words, shopping centres that already operate illicitly on Sundays - and food outlets will have to close from 1pm. So much for simplification.

Each retailer will have to strike a deal with its unions on Sunday opening hours and compensation, or hold an internal referendum on the issue and pay double wages on Sundays. Staff will be allowed to refuse to work Sundays. The bill has also found staunch opponents in the Catholic Church.

On December 12, Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, who chairs the French bishops’ conference, described the idea of Sunday openings as ‘‘unhealthy’’, even in the toned down version of the bill.

‘‘I refer to the meaning of Sundays itself and to the risk for society to make all days humdrum, losing marked days for rest and activities that allow a society to base itself on something other than work and commerce,” he added.

Father Jacques Turck, who heads the family and society department at the French bishops’ conference, told The Sunday Business Post that deregulating Sunday opening times seemed out of step ‘‘as all the talk is about regulating the economy’’. While he praised public service employees who work for others on Sundays, he said: ‘‘The idea that people should work on Sundays to get double pay because they have not earned enough during the week is ridiculous. Let’s just pay them well during the week.”

After just one afternoon of discussion last Wednesday, the parliamentary debate turned sour and was adjourned until January.

French stores will definitely not be open on Sundays for the winter sales.

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