Open anyway and pass for "a bad citizen" or even a delinquent?
Or leave the door closed, at the risk of lowering the curtain in the short term, this time definitely?
This Tuesday, rue Bonaparte (6th arrondissement), Évelyne Spilet put light in the window and opened the door to her “Knitwear workshop”, specializing in cashmere and alpaca.
Essential?
Not essential?
The notion seems quite relative in this rather chic street of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, where the shopkeeper dares to challenge confinement: two luxury chocolatiers are open, a shop exclusively dedicated to tea as well ...
"November and December are the best months of the year"
“If we go to the end of the reasoning, clothes are essential, otherwise you go out naked!
I cannot understand this discrimination between what is essential and what is not, ”says Evelyne bitterly, looking through the colored shelves of her store.
Chromatic stacks where everything is already displayed at -50%.
“November and December are the best months of the year,” she points out, “we sell a seasonal product!
This is the third winter of hardship, after the yellow vests, the endless strikes, today the Covid-19 ... All this is an accumulation of losses, collapsed margins and a huge drop in consumption.
Obviously we have to fight this virus, but what makes me jump is the injustice of the closure of businesses that respect the protocol to the letter!
My shop is more spacious than some authorized neighboring businesses, barrier gestures are fully respected, all of this is incredibly unfair ”.
“At broken prices but sell… If we can!”
So Evelyne Spilet immersed herself in reading the decree listing the businesses authorized to open, depending on whether they sell essential products or not.
"It's very vague, we don't understand anything," defends the founder of 3 shops, including another in Paris that she has resolved to close.
"It is in a totally ghost sector of the 16th century," sighs the shopkeeper who has put her 17 employees on partial unemployment.
Here the shopkeeper has reduced the opening hours, and is counting on “Black Friday in November, the promotions before Christmas.
You have to sell.
At broken prices but sell… If we can!
The survival of our business is at stake.
Even if the loan guaranteed by the State covers the costs a little, the charges are not canceled, the rents are only postponed, and at the same time the turnover plunges… ”.
The announcement of the closure of the clothing departments of supermarkets does not console her.
"This puts us on an equal footing, but it is a way of creating an opposition between large distribution and small independent traders," she regrets.
We don't want this rivalry, we want to work and survive!
".
Paris Newsletter
Every morning, the news of your department seen by Le Parisien
I'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to enable you to receive our news and commercial offers.
Learn more
Evelyne Spilet's inclinations to resist, however, collide with the reality of confinement: a clientele with absent subscribers.
But despite everything, the shopkeeper decided to keep a shop and also put on “click & collect” from her website.
A sales method to which more and more businesses are coming, but which has its limits and represents on average only 15 to 20% of sales.
