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Conservative supporters hail the law as a reformist boost for France's recession-stalled economy. But detractors on both the left and right just as energetically decry it as a vulgar consumerist assault on tradition, families and even French democracy. "We've got better things to propose to our fellow citizens than a life of commuting, sleeping and buying," lamented André Lardeux, one of many senators from the ruling Union for a Popular Majority party who defied President Nicolas Sarkozy by voting against his pet law to liberalize Sunday commerce. (See pictures of President Sarkozy in London...
Tiny though it may be, that victory promises to throw countless shop doors open every Sunday around France from here on out. The law - which supporters hope will go into effect later this year - designates about 500 spots with "tourism interests" that may start doing business on Sundays to exploit the presence of vacationing visitors. It similarly liberalizes trading in border regions where, in some areas, French stores that close one day a week lose out to rivals across the frontier who are allowed to stay open les dimanches...
Finally, the law also legalizes what, in fact, is an already common (albeit illicit) practice in shops and malls clustered around Paris, Lille and Marseille - though limits it to those areas. The text calls for Sunday work to be left optional for employees and paid higher than other days, but opponents say those stipulations will be ignored once bosses start ordering employees fearful of losing their jobs to take on dominical work behind closed doors, and on management's terms...
Sunday shopping a threat to French civilization? If Darcos' assurances sound excessive, they only reflect the resistance his Sarkozy-mandated bill has provoked. Leftists continue to assail its move to undermine a 1907 law prohibiting Sunday trading as only the first step toward the very generalization of travail dominical that Darcos denies. They also vow to challenge the law before France's Constitutional Council on the somewhat ironic grounds that by allowing only some shops to operate Sundays, it violates the rights of employees who may want to work on Sunday but whose shops are not covered by the reform...
Dissenting conservatives, meanwhile, denounce the law as a threat to an array of social and cultural traditions rooted in the seventh day being one of rest. They warn that family gatherings, leisure activities and even church attendance will suffer greatly as people are forced to don the dominical yoke of labor. Where will the next Renoir get his inspiration for another Bal du Moulin de la Galette? What would Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte be without the Sunday bit? And how to defend the colors against the neighborhood rival if your goalkeeper and best...