“All of this is going in the right direction. We cross fingers. “ Gontran Thüring, General Delegate of the National Council of Shopping Centers (CNCC) was rather “Satisfied” announcements made by Prime Minister Jean Castex in the columns of the Parisian, Tuesday May 11. And, in particular, the confirmation that all stores, whatever their size and location, would reopen on May 19 – like the non-food departments of supermarkets -, in accordance with the announcements of the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, in the regional daily press, April 30. The largest surfaces and shopping centers exceeding 20,000 m2 had lowered the curtain since January 31, and the smaller stores, April 3.
The novelty: the number of customers who can be admitted to a store at the same time will be identical to the protocol in force when they close and will gradually become more flexible until it disappears on June 30: first one customer for 8 square meters and one only customer for smaller shops, then one customer for 4 square meters from June 9th.
The businesses had been informed of these elements during a telephone point last week, with Bruno Le Maire, Minister of the Economy, and Alain Griset, the Minister for SMEs. At the end of this meeting, the professional associations of traders were especially reassured to learn that the schedule drawn up by the Head of State was not going to be jostled again a priori.
They were also pleased to discover these days that the request of traders to be able to open on Sundays, if they wish and in accordance with the regulations on Sunday work, had been granted. This in order to make up for some of their shortfall. The Minister of Labor, Elisabeth Borne addressed, Monday, May 10, an instruction to the prefects so that they initiate local consultations to grant by decree exceptional exemptions from Sunday work.
Cacophony and paperwork
But the implementation of these Sunday opening permits “Risk of being folkloric again because these decisions are once again in the hands of the prefects. We know very well that some of them are less liberal than others in this area. We would have preferred a centralized slogan at the state level ”, says Thüring. At the turn of the year, already, an identical configuration had triggered a certain cacophony and above all a lot of paperwork.
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