AIBU to ask why French high streets seem to thrive?

I have one word in response.

CAMBRIDGE.

I'm wondering if these different perceptions of either thriving or failing France are roughly in line - so to speak - with the traditional, "diagonale de vide."

I'll try to attach an image but it's basically a corridor of land with relatively low population density and not much industry running from the North East to the South West of France, with Clermont-Ferrand being the big city smack bang in the middle of it, as the great exception to the rule.

Although that's because of the Michelin factory and the influx of Portuguese workers in the 1960's.

The country's changing though. Remote working, people buying cheaper property in these rural places and so forth.

What groceries can you buy at a business park??

Wholly inaccurate description of 'Brits'!

When I lived there a very long time ago I was horrified to discover you were not allowed to have an overdraft. It was actually illegal or something. I wondered how people survived. I lived off my overdraft as a student. Their banking system was in the dark ages compared to the UK. it was very difficult for working class/ordinary people to buy property. You needed a massive deposit like 30% of the purchase price. Everyone I knew lived in HLM’s (council flats).

😂 this really made me laugh, finding this thread very entertaining

I have got to admit, that is funny.

Youve got to be kidding me 😂
Have yiu missed the hundreds of thousands of zones industrielles with the carrefour hypermarchés and multiplex chain cinemas and buffalo grills? You know McDonalds makes more sales in France than any other European country?

Jesus some of the comments on this thread are utterly.clueless. It would be like a French person spending two weeks a year in Oxford and going back home and telling all their French friends how wonderful Britain is, how everybody in the UK rows everywhere and wears boaters and speaks with lovely clear cut glass accents and really values cream teas

We've got to stop with "Brits are ...". There was uproar when Sunday trading was going to be allowed. People objected to Supermarkets being out of towns, how councils were pushing for business to be all located in one spot and high streets going to bars and accommodation. Supermarkets opened with, loose veg/potatoes, fish counters and butchers, priced out shops, then went to prepackaged and frozen. In our two local areas the restaurants are now closing because even though they are constantly busy, they still can't make it pay. Public transport and now resident's only/expensive/lack of parking etc is making life even more difficult.

What I’ve noticed in France is that self-service checkouts haven’t taken off. Good on ‘em, they’re choosing not to be totally ruled by computers in the way the U.K. is.

Oh you've got to be joking. The number of times I've been stuck at the only open checkout behind four Frenchies each with a massive trolley full of stuff, when I've just got a handful of items, and none of them are going to let me in front (because they're French), and both they and the checkout attendant are moving slower than granite...if it happened in the UK it would be seen as infuriating and ridiculously inefficient, but because it's in France it's 'Oh yes the wonderful French with their commitment to old fashioned values like shite customer service and everyday tasks taking ages longer than they really need to, we should be more like them'.

Brits are obsessed with driving everywhere and prefer out of town business parks. The French love their bicyclettes. They have trailers which they can put their enfants in and cycle en centre ville en famille.

Many high streets here (France) are suffering terribly, possibly even worse than in the UK. It's been even worse since lockdown.
The towns that seem to be doing alright are the ones that attract tourists or have a high population.

Last time I was in France, only a couple of years ago, I saw a lot of closed shops with ‘A vendre’ signs. Admittedly not in the most touristy areas, but one, Semur en Auxois (stunning medieval town) is definitely on the tourist map.

OTOH the small town close to where BiL has his property. seems to be doing pretty well, but that’s probably because although in a rural area, and not possessing much in the way of architectural marvels, it’s not far from Dijon (jobs) and just minutes from a major motorway junction.

Another factor is that medical care is so decentralised and supported by the government. In even the smallest towns and villages you will find infirmieres liberales - basically self-employed nurses who do home visits in the local area, working from home or a small clinic that they might share with others. Ditto physios, orthophonistes (speech therapists). They are all essentially self employed and service users engage them directly - rather than users travelling to a big hospital to access them. Add a local pharmacy and it means that older people can stay in their village for a lot longer than of these services weren’t available locally.

When we lived in Copenhagen one of the first things I realised was I was going to be doing ‘a lot’ of cooking - they just don’t do good ready meals, they do a lot of frozen and strange stuff in big glass jars and they are supremely awful . There were other strange things too, impossible to get branded medical stuff off shelves- I used to stick up in UK - meals out were actually amazing but pricey and actually I thought raw ingredients were not good- chicken all looked odd and that weird ‘pulled’ shape you get at the cheap end here, pork was crap because apparently they send the better stuff to the UK! Beef - not good! Fish- very good- and expensive. We actually found it hard to eat well there at a sensible budget and I lived on smoked salmon, prawns, hand made fish cakes ( now there were nice) and a fair bit of soya mince to make bolognese and chilli plus a shop that made great handmade pies. There is an amazing indoor foodhall but it costs an arm and a leg. You don’t realise if like us you live in a nice place in UK how much you get to take places like M&S and Waitrose on your doorstep for granted to pull together a quick tasty dinner. Sweden was easier by the way, Netherlands too as had very good affordable delis . I loved living in Copenhagen, great city but the eating part was not quite what I expected - if I could have afforded to eat out 5 days a week would have been fine!!

Are the dogs actually the managers?
It must make "I want to speak to the manager" interesting 😂🐶

My sister lived in a small village near Limoges. About 20 years ago, it had a number of small shops and facilities, cafe and bar. They have all closed, and now they have no shops at all. So its a 10 minute drive to the next slightly larger village that has a bakers and a small Carrefour. She has recently moved to a larger town that has all the facilities for now.

Even small supermarkets will sell plasters and some first aid things. They do sell iodine solutions as a disinfectant, plus other liquids I don’t know what they are for 🤷‍♀️. It’s medications that are restricted.

we just came back from the UK with about a million paracetamol and ibuprofen.

If a French shop of any description does not have a dog who lives in a basket under the till, then it is a very inferior sort of business. Understaffed, at any rate.

Umm the French do have out of town shopping centes and massive hypermarkets, just get any little local bus from a French town/small city and you will find one doing a tour of some massive out of town retail park.

A few years ago we got a bus from a remote museum back to Perpignan centre and it spent about 20 mins doing laps of a giant retail park that looked like the outskirts of Croydon.

So many people say our high streets aren't thriving but I can honestly say that I've been traveling the UK pretty extensively this year and have seen bloody hundreds of them thriving.

Our local social media is full of people bemoaning the state of our high street because it has 'a vape shop and too many charity shops and no proper shops'.

Ever single shop is occupied. Even the two banks which closed last year. We have a DIY shop, butcher, two bakers, a shoe shop, several clothes shops, a pet shop, pubs, bars, cafes, a small supermarket, a florist, a greengrocer's stall, a baking shop, a sandwich shop, a chip shop, Opticians, dentist, card shop, post office, chinese, Indian, hair dressers, barbers. Sports Direct just opened here. I could go on.

It's a small ordinary town but doing ok despite online shopping, 3 supermarkets nearby and a mahoosive Mall 20 minutes away. I honestly don't know what the fuck people expect. A Harrod's beauty shop and Daylesford Organic next door perhaps.0

I reckon a lot of people who moan about high streets never shop there.

Maybe high streets aren't what they were but this has become one of 'those things people whinge about to run down the UK'.

I have to say that if I ask DH to go and get some fresh coriander on a Sunday, his face falls 😂. Even in our big city supermarkets there isn’t the same army of overnight shelf stackers that there is in the UK, so a lot of things do run out and don’t get replaced.

Oh I love a trip to Grand Frais! It's interesting isn't it, we're very rural too, though the nearest big city is a good hour away. Maybe that's why our supermarkets stock a good variety of stuff?

Not always small. And often responsible for the ‘unique’ smell!

Me too!

In my little town in Normandy (the town and 4 surrounding communes total about 3500 inhabitants) we have: butcher, traiteur, boulangerie, greengrocer, cave, artisanal biscuiterie-chocolaterie, 2 pharmacies, 4 hairdressers, 2 beauty salons, 2 opticians, a hearing aids centre, post office, the ubiquitous PMU, several cafes/bars, restaurants, couple of takeaways, 2 newsagents/cafes, a jewellers, an Aladdin's cave that sells everything from toys to homewares to pet supplies, a bloody fabulous wool/haberdashery shop, 2 florists, 3 boutiques, a shoe shop, a secondhand books/vinyl shop, a bicycle sales/repairs shop, 3 banks, 1 insurance office, 2 estate agents.

That's just in the town centre, on the outskirts we also have a small SuperU and a Lidl (both of which sell coriander and ginger), Point P, Maison, etc.

And a library, swimming pool, outdoor tennis courts, skate park, and a sports centre. Weekly market (although smaller than it was pre-pandemic), artisanal bread stall on a Thursday and fishmonger on a Friday in the market square.

We also have free town centre parking and lots of Mairie-organised events to bring people into the town. I think that's one of the biggest differences between France and the UK - the Mairies here actually give a shit about the villages and towns and we can see where our taxes are being spent.

I'm always intrigued by how the rest of the world still seems to have department stores. Japanese cities have loads of them and people do go shopping.