French Retailers Brace for Strikes At Outset of Crucial Holiday Season
Several million are expected to take part in the Dec. 5 strikes, a date set by unions that are protesting the government’s pending pension reform.
PARIS — French retailers are bracing for countrywide strikes on Thursday that risk disrupting business in the run-up to the crucial holiday shopping season — only a year after “gilets jaunes,” or yellow vest, protests wreaked havoc on the capital.
“We will be impacted — our neighborhood will be secured as it was during the yellow vest protests,” said Benjamin Cymerman, president of the Comité du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, an association of retailers in the tony SaintHonoré neighborhood of Paris, which includes stores for Hermès, Burberry, Gucci, Givenchy, Saint Laurent, Valentino, Boucheron and Messika.
Several million people are expected to take part in the Dec. 5 strike, a date set by unions that are protesting the government’s pending pension reform. Schools will be closed and the national train operator SNCF warned that it expected traffic to be reduced to 10 percent of normal levels. Air France canceled 30 percent of flights in the country, and riders of the Paris metro were warned through loudspeakers Tuesday to expect serious disruption Thursday.
Concerned that protests could turn violent, local government authorities have ordered stores and restaurants to close along the main boulevards connecting the major squares and train stations in the eastern parts of Paris, where marches are expected to pass through, and banned yellow vest protests in the neighborhood below the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. A federation of unions expressed concern about ordered closures, warning that if commercial activity is affected beyond Dec. 5, it could cause irreparable damage to businesses, given the importance of the period, according to Agence France-Presse.
The country’s textile sector has already suffered from a lackluster year, with sales of clothing and textiles in France down
1.3 percent in value terms in the first nine months of the year, according to the Institut Français de la Mode.
Beyond the immediate disruption to transport, which will make it difficult for employees to get to work, retailers are concerned that demonstrations could turn violent and spook deep-pocketed tourists from abroad.