These are the new victims of government restrictions.
This Thursday evening, Prime Minister Jean Castex announced that “large non-food retail outlets of more than 5,000m² will be closed seven days a week in Pas-de-Calais”.
In the 22 other departments under surveillance, the gauge for closing shopping centers will be 10,000 m² while all establishments over 20,000 m² have already lowered the curtain in France for more than a month.
About a hundred new shopping centers closed.
In the 23 departments under surveillance, and especially throughout Île-de-France and on the Mediterranean coast, more than 130 new shopping centers will be closed by midnight Friday.
“That makes more than 500 shopping centers throughout France because there were already 400 of more than 20,000 m² closed, estimates one at Bercy.
In total, this impacts 25,000 stores, or 3,000 more than when the gauge was 20,000 m².
The only concession: customers who have already placed an order in the shops that have to lower the curtain will be able to pick it up until Saturday.
Large DIY stores impacted.
Located outside shopping centers, but with an area of over 10,000m², many independent stores will also have to close.
DIY stores - Leroy Merlin, Bricorama, Castorama… - but also establishments like Ikea will be affected in the 23 departments affected by the measure.
“It is estimated that 115 new establishments of more than 10,000m² - which are not shopping centers but stores - will have to close in the departments where vigilance is reinforced, the Ministry of the Economy is assured.
In total, 185 department stores will no longer be able to open everywhere in France and among them, 150 are DIY supermarkets.
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The worst was narrowly avoided.
"At the end of the Defense Council on Wednesday, the 5,000m² gauge was to be applied in the 23 departments", explains one in the entourage of Bruno Le Maire, the Minister of the Economy.
This Thursday afternoon, an emergency meeting organized in Bercy, however, allowed the federations of professionals to bring their arguments: such a decision would concern too many establishments.
In Bercy, it is estimated that 200 new shopping centers and their 8,000 shops, as well as 800 independent stores should have lowered the curtain.
“With a gauge of 5,000m², that amounts to closing a large part of Fnac, Décathlon, Boulanger or Darty, we concede to Bercy.
It was a lot of people.
Finally, Bruno Le Maire proposed an intermediate gauge between the 20,000 m² already in force and the 5,000 m² registered with the Defense Council, which only concern Pas-de-Calais.
Matignon decided and validated this proposal around 3:30 pm this Thursday.
Professionals "disappointed".
Despite this compromise, the representatives of the shopping centers nevertheless say they are "very disappointed": "not only, scientific studies remind us that there are no clusters in the stores, but periods of high affluence such as those of the sales are past ”, argues Gontran Thüring, the general delegate of the National Center of shopping centers (CNCC), who asks at least that this“ lasting measure be for a fixed period ”.
Same story on the side of Emmanuel Le Roch, the general delegate of Procos (300 brands and 60,000 employees concerned): "these additional closures will further weaken businesses", asserts the one who now asks that these "closures be as short as possible and that we finally give traders visibility in terms of reopening and aid provided by the State ”.
