Buying your wand or your campaign ball is a much less trivial subject than it seems. In recent months, in France, the departments where it is now possible for businesses to sell bread every day of the week are more and more numerous. After the Hauts-de-Seine in April or
the Côtes-d’Armor a month ago, it is the prefecture of
the Sarthe which has just ended a legal battle lasting several years by authorizing the opening of bakeries seven days a week, repealing a prefectural decree of 2001.
Until now, as in still a majority of departments, artisan bakeries, bread depots, or supermarket shelves had to close at least one day a week. A measure that is not unanimous aimed at preserving small traders (whose workforce does not necessarily allow continuous opening) from competition from the largest chains.
The “disappearance of the artisanal bakery”?
In the case of Sarthe, after several appeals, the Nantes administrative court of appeal asked the prefecture last May to organize a new consultation on whether or not to maintain this text. Approach which this time demonstrated “that a large majority of professional organizations were in favor of opening these points of sale 7 days a week”, explained the prefecture in a press release.
Among the opponents, the National Bakery Confederation fears that this measure will cause “the total disappearance of the artisanal bakery yet so dear to the French”. An argument that seems difficult to make heard while the list of departments where the weekly closure is no longer mandatory is growing (about thirty are currently concerned).
“The objective is not to impose these openings for everyone but everyone must have the choice, reacts for its part the Federation of bakery enterprises (FEP), favorable to these developments and sometimes at the origin. remedies. Butcher shops and florists can already do it, so why not us? “