AIBU to ask why French high streets seem to thrive?

Employees pay these. Just like employees pay income tax and national insurance in the UK. The point is that when setting up a new business with a shop on the high street, the costs are much greater in Britain, because you are liable for business rates even if your business makes no profit. It’s an expensive risk compared with in France.

I was being a bit tongue in cheek saying you were "cheating" because you originally said you could get a weekly shop home in bike bags 😁
Maybe I should have said "fibbing".
I didn't mean it in a nasty way - just making a little joke 🙂

That’s why when I host students for 3 months I use Ocado home delivery. It’s not cheating in my book to get someone else to do the heavy lifting, packing, & drive it to my home

In what way?

Agree!
The share of tax money that goes to local authorities in the UK (councils) is tiny compared to the share that goes back to local authorities/regions in most other countries. We are very very centralised in terms of power. The powers councils do have are for things like social care which were going up in cost over the same 15 year period they received funding cuts. They also, by law, can't raise council taxes by more than a small amount each year. So the only available revenue stream available to them to raise needed revenue to cover their costs is......
Raising rents in council owned commercial properties (shops in the local high street). And given reduced customer spending the only shops that can afford it are dodgy vape shops etc.

The French like to take their time food shopping, its an art not like in UK where we shove everything in a trolley not caring where it came from.

Oh nonsense!

Yup.

Yes I was going to say; devolved power helps and having more decision-making happening at a very, very local level and also more state intervention and legislation governing town planning and which chain stores are permitted where.

More free parking in town centres
more of a cafe culture
still the ethos of going to get produce from the weekly market.
getting the baguette which goes stale within a day. Oh and whilst you’re out can you get … type thing

Yes Budgens sell the "Jack" branded stuff - which is a Tesco brand. Decent prices though.
I love going to the Londis near my mother in law's house.
It's a wonderful selection of Happy Shopper/Euro Shopper products.

I love Budgens! Even though it is a front for Tesco.

No need to apologise! I was on my way out the door and didn't explain...

I see, yes apologies, but slow in the uptake then.

But you can be wealthy and go to the gym, I live in one of the healthiest places in the country the good health is down to the willingness to walk everywhere or cycle, these things are either free or relatively cheap if you use the hired bikes.

Again, not true where I am at all..

I'm sure it is but the people do live in Cambridge not just students, like Oxford, like many parts of London but that doesn't equate to no high street independent shops as that simply isn't true. Equally, the Brits and big cars isn't a thing at all in many cities up and down the country. Perhaps in France there is no traffic but I highly doubt it, on Germany there is certainly traffic and they still have independent high street shops frequented as much as they are in the City I live in the UK. These things are not mutually exclusive. Many people where I live don't own a car so they definitely use the high street shops and most residents within a certain radius walk or cycle everywhere. I know that this is the case in Oxford as DH is from there and everyone he knows lives centrally, it isn't just tourists and students, like the city I live in.

@Persephonia1966 I have to admit I do use my local (overpriced) corner shop frequently for extra bits and bobs - it's pretty much across the road so not much effort.
I have a secret fondness for shops like Londis or Budgens and will often pop in if walking past one. I love they always have 563 different flavours/brands of fizzy drinks.
There's quite a lot of "European" shops round my way where you pop in to buy milk and come out with obscure flavours of jam, a giant bag of Lays crisps and Haribo from Turkey 😂
Thinking about it.... I probably do shop at little convenience stores more often than I should.

Well it's not everyday. But like if you run out of milk/carrots/bread you know you can get it quickly. You don't need to load up on all the milk/vegetables/bread your hypothetical family of four might need for a whole week in one go. And you can send your children to buy bread from the shop on the corner etc. which is actually less effort than buying it yourself. It's all personal but I find having to do a "big weekly shop" at an out of town you need to drive to and park and do all the shopping and load the car and come back and unload it more annoying. That's usually half a Saturday gone. Plus the stress of it being the "weekly shop" and how annoying it is if you forget something because then you still have to go to the shops again.

@Persephonia1966 once I started doing home delivery for my big shop my life has improved so much 😂

Sorry I missed your updates. I didn't have a car at all when I lived in the Netherlands and managed fine. But it's because it's so easy to get to the shops that I never needed to do a big weekly shop for everything. To be fair that's also true for people in many cities in the UK where the shops are very close and when you look at places like that the local shopping street is normally doing fine.
I don't think it's a case of people needing to punish themselves by cycling miles along dangerous roads with an unreasonable amount of shopping bags. It's more that if town planners actually paid attention to making areas walkable/cyclable it would be easier for people to pop to the shops by bike or on foot.

@Persephonia1966 I can't think of anything more boring than having to pop to the shops everyday 😂
As I have said though in this thread - more people would shop (or go to cafés) on their local high street if the shops were actually open past 5.30pm.
That's the major reason why people don't - in my personal opinion.

Bikes have paniers that carry a lot.
However in terms of doing one/two weeks of shopping for a family of 4 on a bike you don't. You cycle for five minutes to the shops and pick up bread, milk, groceries etc every day if need be. For a big shop you can travel by tram/bus or do what lots of people with cars do and drive. It's not that no-one ever drives in more walkable/bike able places. It's just that there's a mindset of popping to the shops for daily stuff on foot or by bike because it's so easy. Rather than doing all big shops at the big supermarket/online and then when one does visit the high street marvelling at how run down it is since the last time you were there 6 months ago.

The difference is customers and quality, and not just in France.

Other European countries also have thriving high streets and markets, The Netherlands, Spain, Hungary and Germany.

Customer (us) spend money in shops, they pay for quality. Thriving shops, making a profit means more thriving shops.

Instead (us) in the UK are buoyed by the cheapness of SHEIN, TEMU and the multiple online ‘fake’ websites selling copied clothing, of poor quality.
We in the UK don’t even seem to notice the tat, poor fabrics and make, dangers of chemicals or the horrid way workers are treated.

We don’t seem to be able to use any critical thinking to work out that something is wrong if an item made from a metre of fabric and flown across the world, costs less than the metre of fabric.

We don’t seem to have worked out that if we don’t shop on the high streets, there won’t be a high street, just lots of empty shops to be filled with nail bars, vape shops and barbers.

We have ourselves to blame, business owners do not run shops as a form of voluntary service to the community.

weve just said the same about Spain. I also noticed lots of independent shops: greengrocers, yabacconist, butchers etc.

Isn't France the home of the 'hypermarket'?