C'est la saison des soldes!!!!!! Sales dates in France
Looking for a bargain in France or an excuse to go there....the date for the start of the winter sales across France has been announced.The sales run for a maximum of five weeks and this time around begin on Wednesday, January 12 starting at 8am.
Here is an interesting extract copied from this website: http://www.discoverfrance.com/france_travel_info/Soldes.htm
And the governement website info
Direction Générale de la Concurrence, de la Consommation et de la Répression des Fraudes (DGCCRF) et la Direction ...
www.dgccrf.bercy.gouv.fr
Extract from website from the internet can't find source for now. Will try again;
Les Soldes - Sales In Paris and France
No time for the January blues to set in once the end-of-year holiday festivities have drawn to a close. In Paris, the sales season known simply as "les soldes" will be inaugurated on January 10 and you can be sure eager shoppers will be lined up in the Paris drizzle waiting to rush their favorite department store. What makes this French version of the after-Christmas sale so special? For one thing, sale events in France don't crop up at each holiday occasion, but instead get concentrated into a month in winter ("soldes d'hiver") and the better part of the month of July ("soldes d'été"). While some stores will run promotions at other times of the year, the word sale is not allowed into the French retail lexicon outside of these two defined periods, under threat of fine from governmental authorities. Most UK and US visitors shake their head in disbelief at the thought that Big Brother is meddling in everyday mercantile exchanges for items that remain in the realm of garments and household appliances. Yet, a State agency, with a name that goes something like General Directorate for Fair Trading, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control, is empowered to monitor that all shopkeepers and retailers strictly abide by these measures and it's up to the local prefects to decide on which date the sales must cease and how deep the discount can actually be, whether 30, 40 or 50% off. So much for the free market… You may think that all these shopping rules and regulations are in place out of a genuine, although overly-authoritarian, concern to protect the consumer, yet in reality France's read on consumerism is to make sure that luring customers does not breed disloyal competition to the detriment of smaller boutiques and shops. This governmental protection of the retailer goes hand in hand with legislation designed to safeguard small independent manufacturers and agricultural producers, both of whom provide a tremendous source of France's economic prestige. So some advice to American visitors is to stop shaking your head, embrace this everlasting French tradition and treat yourselves to the experience of "les grands magasins"…
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