From Ms. Martine Aubry, mayor of Lille, France, writing in the French daily Le Monde:
I’ll fight this social regression at a national level, as in my town.
The Wall Street Journal, France’s Move to Spur Moribund Economy Draws Fire, 12/11/14
And to what social regression was Ms. Aubry referring? Child or convict labor? Involuntary euthanasia? Privatizing health care? A forty-hour instead of thirty-five hour work week? Outlawing adultery? Conscription? Two-week instead of five-week vacations? Prohibiting dogs in restaurants? Google? Apple? Amazon?
None of the above. President Francois Holland has floated a proposal to allow stores to remain open on Sunday. The horror! Some might think that allowing people the freedom to shop an extra day of the week in shops whose owners want to stay open that extra day is social progression, not regression; but this is France. Ms. Aubry was not alone in her determination to fight Sunday openings and a range of similarly innocuous “outrages.” Thousands took to the streets of Paris in protest. Meanwhile the French economy is, as the headline notes, moribund, flirting with recession.
