Sarkozy declares au revoir to France's lazy Sundays

France is a country of rigid rules, apart from all the exceptions. Looked at another way, it is a country where the exception is the rule.

Since that is the rule there are, of course, many exceptions. Pity, then, President Nicolas Sarkozy as he tilts, Don Quixote-like, against the French ban on Sunday trading which has existed since 1906.

Ban? What ban? If you enter any small French town or large village on a Sunday morning, there will be at least one bakery and at least one butcher's shop open.

French cities and large towns have dozens of such shops to choose from. The French national assembly, the lower house of parliament, has approved a draft law which seeks to give clarity and common sense to this jumble.

To get it passed, Sarkozy was forced to compromise.

Under the new law, Paris, Lille and Marseille will be able to create special retail zones for Sunday trading. Until now, these were restricted to "leisure activities". Employees will be able to refuse working Sunday, and employers will have to pay those who agree to work double overtime.

However, shops in towns and villages dubbed of "touristic interest" can also open, but without the obligation to pay employees the higher rates.

The Government says this will apply to 500 towns, the opposition Socialists say the figure will be 10 times higher and will damage the French way of life.

"We have a real disagreement on this, we are defending the Sunday as a rest day, the only day people can relax with their families, play sports, express their spirituality," said Jean-Marc Ayrault, a Socialist MP.

For some, Sarkozy's changes amount to a heartless assault on the very essence of the French way of life.

The Catholic Church complained that the law would destroy the sanctity of Sunday (even though only one in 10 French Catholics attends Mass).

The Left grizzled that the changes would push France down the slippery slope to shopaholic dereliction of family values (although France is already one of the EU countries which works most on Sundays).

Hyperbole exists on both sides of the argument. Sarkozy claims more Sunday shopping will help end the recession. Even the main employers' federation says that it could only help a tiny bit.

"I fear it will damage France's small shops, which are the soul of its villages, in favour of big stores," warned Jean-Francois Roubaud, the head of the French confederation of small and medium-sized businesses.

The President upped the ante by recounting his embarrassment when Michelle Obama, the American First Lady, wanted to do some private Sunday shopping in Paris. "And how are we supposed to explain to her that we are the only country where shops are closed on Sunday?" he said.

Sarkozy's claim that France is alone in having such restrictive Sunday working rules is exaggerated: in reality, Germany, Austria and Belgium are at least as strict.

Unlike in Britain, it is easy to find a bakery or butcher open on Sunday mornings in French villages, while there are already many exceptions in major tourist zones.

But the majority of French are against going any further; a recent opinion poll found that 55 per cent oppose relaxing the law and 57 per cent would refuse to work on Sunday if asked. Another 85 per cent said Sunday should remain a day off for most people.

Both sides prefer to argue about myths rather than face up to the messy realities. Sarkozy himself is partly at fault. Rather than say that he is making a marginal change in a legal muddle he has declared the battle over Sunday to be the battering ram which will create a new France.

"For me, it is emblematic," he told doubtful members of his own party in December. "If we drop this, I will be like all the other presidents who have given up reforms after their first two years. If we give way on Sunday working, it will be symbolic."

Sarkozy's closest supporters argue that the psychological effect of the law could be greater than its practical impact. It should be seen, they say, as part of the President's drive to mess with the French mind: to make the French more entrepreneurial and less consumed by tradition, to "work more to earn more".

To this extent, the President may be right. The Sunday trading law is emblematic of his two years in power. An incremental reform is proclaimed to be radical in the hope that it will somehow alter the way that the French think about themselves.

- INDEPENDENT