Jump to content

Rapidly declining town centres in France


Recommended Posts

Have been a problem for a while, but now even the New York Times is writing

about them.; and surprised me in that the last time I was in this town it felt relatively flourishing

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/world/europe/france-albi-french-towns-fading.html

Of course Béziers is famed for being one of the worst cases

 Le phénomène

des commerces qui ferment les uns après les autres, ce qu'on appelle

pudiquement la vacance commerciale, s'aggrave d'année en année. Entre

2001 et 2015, ce taux de magasins inoccupés est passé en France de 6,1 %

à 10,4 %. Ce phénomène touche surtout les villes moyennes (de 10.000 à

100.000 habitants). En France, c'est Béziers qui affiche le

pourcentage le plus élevé de boutiques abandonnées avec un taux de 24,4 %

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There was a fashion about 2 years ago for electronic cigarette shops but they seem to have run out of breath.[:-))]

I regret the dearth of real boulangers, who seem largely to have been replaced by industrial chain versions. I suppose it was a demanding lifestyle with a very early start, the risk of flour on the lungs, and the obligation to be open.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Out-of-town shopping centres and online shopping is killing rural/semi rural towns. Also of course, less disposable income and high costs of running a business does not help either.

Plus of course, the younger generation are heading for cities.

Another reason why France can't afford to lose the British moving to rural France. In fact they should be encouraging it !!!!!
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Our village had lots of commerces initially, and they whittled down, there are a few now, that have been there for years. I imagine that when the current owners retire, they may not be replaced though.

They seem to be doing OK in spite of the village expanding there are not more than there were.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="Loiseau"]The only flourishing commerces in towns I know seem to be hairdressers, chemists, poodle parlours, tattooists - oh and insurance companies.[/quote]

We don't have any tattooists - one opened a couple of years ago, lasted a few months and then closed down for good - but we do have an abundance of estate agents, at least 7 agencies for our population of around 7 000 permanent residents.

Sue

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Our town has around 10,000 residents according to the mairie, although that was the number 9 years ago and lots of houses and apartments have been built by then. The number shoots up in the tourist season too.

We are very well off for cafés, restaurants and everyday shops, although the only hardware shop closed last year and we've had a soap shop open fairly recently - on the slippery slope towards turning into a St Remy..........

Quite a few shops/boutiques open each year in time for the tourist season, but most only last the one season.

A couple of bakeries closed a year or two ago but one other opened; I think we still have 15 or so without counting any on the outskirts, so we're still well-endowed with those. I buy from two artisan bakeries, really enjoy watching through the pavement-side windows of one when they are busy baking. I also buy lovely cakes from one of the shops, where again everything is made on the premises, including delicious chocolates.

There are three small supermarkets in the town centre, with two large ones on the outskirts. We have two markets each week, one mid-week selling only local produce and a huge provençal-type market on Saturdays.

I've been down twice without a car recently; almost everything we need can be bought in town, otherwise it's a 1.50€ bus ride each way to Nîmes or Avignon, although friends are generous with lifts there and back too.

I think we're pretty well-off for shops generally; the only thing we haven't been able to find was a mousseur for the kitchen tap - would that be an aerator?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Albi has always been a weird place for shopping. Ten minutes walking in the centre will turn up half a dozen shops where you could spend over a hundred euros on a pair of lacy underpants or three hundred on a handbag with somebody elses name printed on it, but nowhere to buy something to eat or anything useful.

Now, those same stupid boutiques are still there....the inevitable two dollybird sales assistants fiddling with their telephones in the empty shop and there is still nowhere to get something to eat and good luck finding a restaurant for lunch outside of tourist season.

The article is hardly groundbreaking though is it? retail parks take business from town centres....That applies to pretty much everywhere in the western world.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="plod"]You obviously don’t know Albi very well. There are plenty of restaurants.[/quote]

 

Plenty that can be found by walking 10 minutes in the twon centre?

 

If I arrived by train at 16.00 would I find anything at all anywhere to eat?

 

I dont know Albi but i know the answer in my town centre.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dave, I am impressed by your knowledge of the knicker shops of Albi; obviously you have gone to a lot of trouble to sniff them out!

My little village of Montreuil sur Mer still has a hardware store and an old fashioned, private DIY store, but both the owners will be retiring in a couple of years and feel that noone will want to take on theses businesses. Such a pity.

But, they are both very expensive and the choice is somewhat limited.

Guess we all have to get used to change.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I did my little bit to delay the inevitable closure of our rip off bricolage shops today, I needed 7 metres of 10mm2 earth cable, bricodepot is €1.22 per metre but a 30 minute drive away, we have both a M. Bricolage and a Brico-Marché locally, having checked the B-D base price I knew that one shop would be 60% more expensive and the other 40-50% more expensive than that, the only doubt is which one is going to be the lesser rip off.

 

And of course I was right, €1.91 per metre in Bricomarché and €2.95 in M. Bricolage.

 

They have a cartel running between them, for any product one will be 40-50% more expensive than the other and even within the same line, ie 2.5mm cable will be cheaper at one, 6mm at the other, 10mm at the first one, 16mm at the other and so on, their base price is always 50% more than B-D, on average a basket of products from either will be 220% more expensive than Bricodepot, if I need anyting more than €13 its cheaper to spend the diesel to go to Brico-depot.

 

If its one cheap item like the cable I go into my normal routine, drive to the first one and check the price, then go to the second one, buy it there if its cheaper or return home via the first one, I always save 40% by doing this every single time, if I need 3 or 4 things even if they wont cost the €13 threshold its too much to-ing and fro-ing so Brico-depot wins again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Talking to a friend and she said that a proper supermarket is going to open just outside the village. Her worry is that the butchers and bakers will close, the only place she reckons that will remain open is the Tabac, as folks'll still need their tobacco.

Also,  as the post office has now closed the tabac has taken over some of the services.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There was an interesting article on Dinain on BBC 'From Our Own Correspondent'.  I always knew it was a grindingly poor place even at the height of the coal mining when the miners were treated worse than slaves as revealed by Emile Zola

The only difference now seems to be that there is no longer coal mining.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...