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France's award winning baker forced to comply with closing one day per week.


Quillan
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Another example of France, its backward thinking and the consequences.

A baker in Saint-Paul-lex-Dax (Landes) has been force to open only six days a week rather than seven. The owner of this award winning bakery employees 22 staff has been opening for seven days for the last three years. He has had two visits from the "l'Inspection du Travail" and has been interviewed by the police. The extra day brings in, according to him, 250,000 Euros per year which he will now loose and he wil have to sack two of his staff. To keep it balanced he could have gone to the "haute juridiction administrative française" ( French high court) and "le Conseil d'Etat" (State Council) for permission to open seven days which other bakers have done in the past and have been successful but he didn't. However as is the norm with the French not only is it expensive (not that it would seem by his comment to be a problem as he is not exactly poor) but takes a very long time.

Now I notice that the supermarkets round where I live bake seven days a week (I say bake because the bread comes pre-formed and all they have to do is bake it) and one of our bakers opens seven days a week. The baker that opens I am told can do so because they make and sell pizza’s but how that 'works' I have no idea. They also only employ a handful of people unlike this chap above.

The thing is if this guy is going to sack two people because he can't open one day a week and considering that the government benefits from any taxes on that day plus through the employment of the two staff and that now they may well end up paying unemployment benefit to these two I would have thought the French system has somewhat shot itself in the foot.

It would seem that he has François Fillon on his side who has said in his blog "his desire to be free to work 7 days a week" and that "That work in our country can be considered an offense and the passion of a craftsman be stopped should alert us to the absurdity of our system".

He is not the only one to be forced to close, another baker fell foul of the same law in Carrément Gourmand (Bayonne) last week.

 

http://www.midilibre.fr/2015/02/11/un-boulanger-contraint-de-respecter-l-obligation-de-fermer-un-jour-par-semaine,1123171.php#xtor=EPR-2-[Newsletter]-20150211-[Zone_info]]

 

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There is a notice up in our local supermarket which says there will be no fresh bread on Tuesdays. I found this rather strange as it doesn't seem to affect our local Aldi which has fresh bread every day.

I put it down to another example of a typically strange French approach to economics........
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€250,000 for one days opening per year?

52 of them in a year = €4,807 per day

8 hours in a day (just) = €600 per hour

At that rate the french government should be giving him a subsidy to stay open, like to see the size of the contribution he makes to the French economy?

Or have i missed something [geek]

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22 staff would seem to suggest a sizeable enterprise so why not ?

Work it down to that level and you have takings of €27 per hour per employee [;-)]

I think beyond this particular case though the big question is do we really want to see free for all 24/7/365 shopping in France like in UK, I know I don't.

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When I was working in the UK my hours were normally from 08:00 to 19:00 or 20:00 with an hour travel either way. I found being able to shop at night and on Sundays very helpful. Now I have a different lifestyle and it is not such a big issue although I do need to buy bread 7 days a week for my guests. Supermarket shopping and DIY shops opening 7 days a week is not so important as I can visit them in the week but for those that work 'normally' I can imagine it can get quite frustrating at times. The thing is the shops, the government, the employees and the public can and do benefit but those that have time to visit shops in the week being closed on Sundays (which is not really what this is about as it can be any day) it is not a big issue. We have the right to chose to go, stay at home or do something else I guess is my point.
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The ungoogletranslated parole of François Fillon makes much better reading:

"Que le travail puisse dans notre pays être considéré comme un délit et la passion d'un artisan ainsi bridée doit nous alerter sur l'absurdité de notre système", écrit François Fillon

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When Sunday opening was first raised in the UK the big cry was 'no one wants to shop on a Sunday'. However, the Government did not listen. Go shopping on a Sunday and the car parks are full, so people do want to shop on a Sunday.

As I have posted before if you believe that people should not work on a Sunday then do not:

watch TV

use electricity

use the phone

drive a car - an accident or breakdown will require help or fuel

hospitals to close on Sundays - come and get your relatives for the day

on and on and on

Wonder what the thoughts of Sunday working of the two people being made redundant?
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The reason that you can get bread every day is a Napolionique law when Bony said that French men have to have fresh bread every day. In a couple of villages near here there are a couple of bakers in each. They close on different days. Our village shop, Intermarché franchise, is open 7 daze a week, mainly for the brad, but he sells everything as normal.

It's also a similar law that states that a Frenchman can take his dog anywhere. So apparently (??) hotels can't refuse them, so I have been told [:-))] I suppose that if he doesn't have a dof he could always borrow one [8-)]

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[quote user="PaulT"]Wonder what the thoughts of Sunday working of the two people being made redundant?[/quote]

Well to be fair they only have to close one day a week and I noticed that the other baker who has been forced to comply closes on a Wednesday so we don't know what day this chap will close on. We have two bakers and as I said one is open seven days but the other only six and they close on a Monday. I seem to recollect that there is some law about the price of bread and that the baguette has its price fixed low because everyone has a right to bread but only for six days of the week and on the seventh they eat dried bread or none. Strange bit of logic that. Am I right in reading that this law about closing for one day only came into effect in 1999.

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[quote user="Jonzjob"]
It's also a similar law that states that a Frenchman can take his dog anywhere. So apparently (??) hotels can't refuse them, so I have been told [:-))] I suppose that if he doesn't have a dog he could always borrow one [8-)]
[/quote]

Your right, we can refuse a baby or a handicapped person but we can't refuse a dog. However we advise people not to on the basis that I have two and I tell the guest that bringing his/her dog to my house is at his/her risk and that one has a tendancy to shag anything on four legs as its his house. Lucky it is castrated but they don't need to know that. [+o(]

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Thinking about it, the three bakers in my old village closed one day during the week, not all the same day. All always open on a Sunday, best day to be open, it is when people like to buy their cakes, tarts and treats.

And artisan bread, well, the pain de campagne should keep, and some of those darker breads should keep for quite a long time, in the hamlets above my village had an oven that was only lit a couple of times in the winter and the bread would be baked then and was to keep.

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That is such a stupid thing to do - punish a good baker, make people redundant and land everyone with a smaller amount in tax income plus extra to pay out social benefits to the two assistants and their families!

According to our mayor in today's Midi Libre, we have 11 banks, 65 places to eat, about 300 places to shop, 20 estate agents, 20 dentists and 20 general practitioners. Amongst that lot, there are about 16 bakers; all but one open on Sunday mornings, with one open all day Sunday. Most close on Mondays, the dead day, but there are several to choose from even then. I think we're lucky.

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