Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Oxford Street on a Sunday

I was having a walk in Oxford Street last Sunday. With two rays of sun, the Londoners were out and the street was completely crowded, people enjoying the warm weather and the shops. Indeed, all the shops were opened and people were buying en masse according to the number of retailers bags each were carrying.

As I was witnessing this shopping spree, I was reflecting on a walk I had on a sunny afternoon in Paris last year. The town was beautiful as ever and people were enjoying drink on terraces but almost no one was shopping for the very simple reason that most of the shops were closed (except on the Champs-Elysées). This is something I can't understand: the French government is desperate to decrease unemployment and is asking French people to consume more to drive growth and yet, most of the shops are still closed most Sunday. Allowing shops to operate every Sunday would probably be a popular measure with the population, it would decrease unemployment because more staff would be required in the shops and it would drive consumptions because of the extra day for shopping.

I guess it's not that simple otherwise our politicians would have pushed for it but I don't really understand the drawbacks. Of course, people would have to work on Sunday but many services are operating on Sunday (public transportation, hospitals...) so it's not an impossible task.

3 Comments:

Blogger Guillaume said...

Unions....

1:45 PM  
Blogger k said...

Yes the unions of course but what's in for them? I mean opening stores on Sunday should not threathen them too much...
Probably they are complaining for the sake of it!!!

4:27 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Come on Olivier, you can do better than that :) Unions usually have a good reason when they complain.
It all boils down to the duality of interpretation: what you would interpret as a economically "good thing" would be interpreted as an open way to forcing workers to work on Sunday and a threat to our social rights.

It reminds me how every day in every newspaper, each part of the european treaty is interpreted in two opposed ways by two different persons...

2:23 PM  

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