Bastille of the closed shop

SERGE, THE owner of a Normandy driving school, was adamant. There would be chaos if President Francois Hollande lets any Jacques or Julie open an auto-ecole without the statutory 25 square metres of floor space.

‘‘If you do everything on the internet, you are opening the door to mayhem,’’ Serge fulminated. ‘‘If something goes wrong they will only have the internet to complain to.’’

His rant, on a radio phone-in, was part of a chorus of indignation from the 37 professions and trades in the sights of the embattled Socialist government as it tries to cut the red tape that has long choked the French economy. As well as the regulations on floor space, driving schools must have a reception counter at least a metre wide.

Among the regulated trades and professions in the firing line are architects, auctioneers, dentists, accountants, plumbers, locksmiths, chiropodists, physiotherapists, pharmacists, bailiffs, lawyers, vehicle roadworthiness testers and opticians.

The finance ministry estimates that cuts to the cost of archaic rules and fee-fixing will save 6 billion (NZ$9.4b) a year. It says the French pay 20 per cent more than their European neighbours for protected services, whose practitioners make about 2.4 times the profit enjoyed by unre- stricted trades and professions.

The attack was opened by Arnaud Montebourg, the leftist who has just lost his job as economy minister. Unlike Hollande’s tax- break for businesses, an offensive against the high incomes of the ‘‘ rentier’’ professions is popular with the Left.

Prising open the closed shops will be a test for Hollande after Nicolas Sarkozy, his predecessor, abandoned pledges to liberalise taxis and dropped attempts to break chemists’ monopoly on non- prescription medicines. Hollande’s team has re-opened the fight, meeting tough resistance.