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Please, please buy French......


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........has been the refrain from the Hollande government and this has been supported by some of La Nation. However, not when it comes to winter wardrobes apparently.....

This is a doozey  http://www.lexpress.fr/styles/diapo-photo/styles/shopping/soldes-de-janvier-2013-nos-reperages-sur-les-sites-de-vetements-anglo-saxons_1203509.html

(The magazine article finds the best bargains in the British sales for French buyers!!)

 

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Not the kind of shopping I'd do, even from French retailers...

As for "buy French" or "buy British", it's all relative. If I ain't got the dosh, I ain't buying!

I had a discussion along these lines on a blog during the summer. The blogger was trying to convince her readers to buy French strawberries, despite them being 2.5x more expensive than the Spanish ones I could buy in Lidl.

My argument was that if I wanted strawberries, I would by the best value I could afford. No way would I even consider paying 2.5 more if the Spanish ones were as tasty and cheaper.

My primary and sole responsibility is to my own purse.

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Don't know about buying French but have to say I was impressed with Amazon.

As usual, we are in UK for Winter and, after our Christmas tea, I found myself Googling for a device to check car tracking. Sad, or what? Amazon came out cheapest for the exact item I wanted and offered free delivery.

Placed order 7.30pm Christmas evening. Delivered by Royal Mail yesterday morning!

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I am a fussy shopper where provenance is concerned. I only buy bananas from old french or british colonies, rather than say Colombia. Grapes, well, that drives me mad, especially in autumn, WHY are grapes from the USA or Chile being sold in UK shops, the grapes are cropping in the EU and that is where they should be coming from. Apples, well, british or french and then other EU countries and lastly New Zealand, but truthfully I rarely buy fruit that has come so far.

 

And buy french, well, clothes being bought anywhere in the EU are probably only keeping asiatic countries booming.

 

I do try to be a careful shopper, not always with success and on a limited budget it isn't always easy.

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Having just read that 52% of Xmas gifts given in France will be sold . Ebay fr expecting the 7th of Jan to be their busiest day for present selling when people spend time at work converting thei

gifts to cash .Perhaps a gift resale tax should be next on the

list.

Given the time and trouble I spend on slecting gifts for

people I think this is not a nice thing to do it shows a lack of respect toward the giver
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In general I agree-I buy what is cheapest, as long as the quality is good.Use Lidl a lot etc.

However with strawberries I do not buy Spanish strawberries after reading this.

https://sites.google.com/site/amapgrandjardin2/home/articles-de-presse/lesfraisesespagnoleslescandaleecologique

Mind you I grow my own which are usually better!
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[quote user="Clair"]Not the kind of shopping I'd do, even from French retailers...

As for "buy French" or "buy British", it's all relative. If I ain't got the dosh, I ain't buying!

I had a discussion along these lines on a blog during the summer. The blogger was trying to convince her readers to buy French strawberries, despite them being 2.5x more expensive than the Spanish ones I could buy in Lidl.

My argument was that if I wanted strawberries, I would by the best value I could afford. No way would I even consider paying 2.5 more if the Spanish ones were as tasty and cheaper.

My primary and sole responsibility is to my own purse.

[/quote]

I would extra for strawberries from Plougestel, but perhaps not twice as much.....
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When we came to live in Provence our house was surrounded by apple and pear trees, now, nearly 10 years later, we are the only people in the area with apple trees, all the others having been pulled up. I asked a suit in Auchan one day why were they selling apples from New Zealand when they could purchase locally....it appears they were cheaper to source in NZ than here. Something wrong somewhere M Hollande.

HNY Wilko
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Whilst having a sort of affinity to NZ, a son lives there and son-in-law is a Kiwi, I was absolutely astounded to see that our local SuperU recently were selling bog standard ordinary cooking onions imported from New Zealand. How on earth is it possible to have cheaper and fresher onions when they have to travel about 12000 miles!!! This when in our part of Herault there are hectares and hectares laid out for onion production. Very odd.

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The irony isn't lost on me..isn't it the same NZ that will hang draw and quarter you for importing a sandwich?

All the time people are buying non EU produce and goods - supply and demand will prevail. If the EU citizens decided not to buy Asian goods or if the items were taxed to create cost parity then we would be looking after our own interests instead of trying to prove Nostradamus correct ;-)

Instead of outsourcing European production to Asia to take advantage of cheap labour we should incentivise Asian concerns to manufacture in Europe.

The Koreans, Chinese, Japanese and Indians are laughing at their customer and think they have the whip hand....they will have unless the EU and the respective electorates wake up and do something about it.

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[quote user="CeeJay"]Whilst having a sort of affinity to NZ, a son lives there and son-in-law is a Kiwi, I was absolutely astounded to see that our local SuperU recently were selling bog standard ordinary cooking onions imported from New Zealand. How on earth is it possible to have cheaper and fresher onions when they have to travel about 12000 miles!!! This when in our part of Herault there are hectares and hectares laid out for onion production. Very odd.
[/quote]

It is indeed, especially after Quillans incredibly long speech about why we pay money to the EU so we can trade at lower levels. 

So we pay our money in order that a few large multinationals can trade cheaper buying a lot of their produce from abroad (outside the EU) to earn themselves bigger and bigger profits (if not how do they become so large) so they can employ staff on min wages and get them working 24hours a day and bank holidays.

As you say very odd.

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