AIBU to ask why French high streets seem to thrive?

I wouldn't say that at all, I think it's a French thing as I visit Germany a lot and Holland, Belgium, Denmark and life is pretty similar in buying your food in a small supermarket at a self service checkout. Where I live the high street isn't dead and it's a Sainsbury's Local rather than a Lidl like in Germany. Waitrose near me has a much higher standard of food than many busy Lidls in Germany. Equally, compared to where I live in England, if you don't want the national cuisine it's definitely more expensive to get decent international cuisine in restaurants. The whole not being able to buy a bottle Gaviscon for example without visiting a chemist is really annoying!

Same here, even before Covid practically finished off the high streets.

I'm not in France, but a neighbouring country. We have a pharmacy on every corner almost. One of the main reasons is that they are protected - you cannot buy medication anywhere else such as supermarket or parapharmacy (e.g. a shop where you buy shampoos). You can't just get some paracetamol when you do your big shop at Tesco so you need a pharmacy.

I'm on the continent and we have vape shops and nail bars, but it's true that they don't dominate here. Nail bars are often in little precincts. I think you get those things in the UK when there is nothing else. Same for charity shops - many local authorities in the Uk charge them lower rates so they proliferate. You see very few charity shops in other countries.

I think thd French just have more bloody sense than the god awful average British person now. Look at French kids school dinners. Its mind boggling.

paris has lots of those tiny little boutiques, not expensive selling stuff in an average price range

@MandemChickenShop

Don't be ridiculous. Why on earth do you think that is true?

One of the main differences is the fact that you can't just nip into a supermarket and get "everything" that you need. Someone upthread mentioned paracetamol (which is much more expensive than the UK). There's no way you could just pick up some paracetamol in the supermarket. They don't sell it. Nor do they sell any cough medicine or plasters or anything like that. If you are in a big supermarket, there may well be a pharmacy attached, but it is likely to close for 2 hours at lunchtime. Otherwise, you will need to go into town to find a pharmacy. God forbid you need anything vaguely "exotic" for a recipe - and by exotic, I mean anything that you would definitely find in a decent sized UK supermarket such as spices, lemongrass, fresh coriander, fresh ginger.

We lived in France for many years and now that we are back, I still love the fact that when I go to the local supermarket it is likely that I can find everything on the list without having to find a pharmacy/tobacconist/toy shop/deli etc, and make sure that I am not trying to find them between 12 - 2pm/not on a Monday/not on whichever random day they are closed.

What we had/have much more than France and earlier were more out of town supermarkets. Encouraged in part by planning laws, also by local government boundaries being narrow- look at any in the shire counties of the south of England and you could find many that are just over the border in the rural district council (may be the same in the north but I have less knowledge).

The point about French labour laws and less of the long hours culture also I think has an impact.

Having just come back from the UK, it’s clear that the ready meals / processed food market is way more sophisticated and developed in the UK. In French supermarkets you’ll see the same 10 ready meals on offer by maybe 2-3 brands, and that’s about it. Same for takeaways - it’s increasing here all the time but still nothing like in the UK, portions are small and expensive.

@Hoppity80 what size of town are you thinking of? my parents have a holiday home in a very small village in the South with less than 500 inhabitants. It still manages to sustain a wine cooperative, à busy boulangerie, a small supermarket / butcher / traiteur, a hairdresser (only open Saturdays), a bar / restaurant (which also supplies meals on wheels), a restaurant, a post office, a medical centre, primary school and nursery, a doctor and the Marie which gives access to all kinds of public services,

The nearest town is a couple of thousand people but serves a much larger area. It has all the above plus two pharmacies, secondary school, fire station, lots of small businesses - antiques, bric a brac, tabac, beauty parlour, estate agents, you name it. Plus lots more bars, restos, pizza place. There a lot of tourism but also the French state deliberately supports rural communities - they aren’t expected to be financially viable on their own.

Pass through any French town / village on a hot afternoon and you’d think the place was dead. It’s not really, most people are indoors / having a siesta / family time. small French towns tend to be quite compact, houses front straight onto the road and gardens / courtyards / patios are often internal and away from public view, plus shutters get closed. Compared to the typical British street, with gardens out front, it can look dead - but it’s all happening out of view.

Plus the combined Tabac/Francaise des Jeux lottery ticket point/PMU bar.

Hairdresser's or five.

A dry cleaner's or launderette affair where you have to hand over your clothes to be washed.

A SPAR or Proxi Market which will have a unique smell and a ridiculously loud automatic bell which sets itself off when you walk in, disturbing the small dog who lives in a basket under the till.

The booze selection will be impressive but it will be so dark in there that your eyes will not adjust from the bright sunlight in time and you will come out with a bottle of the wrong colour wine at least once. There will be a rotisserie chicken oven in summer. You won't really be tempted by the chicken as it's too close to the cold jambon and pâte fridge.

There might be a Poste but it will not have a photocopier. Despite every government office in France needing a hard copy of every single document to process the slightest démarche.

A pizza van is rumoured to pass through one night a week but you've never seen it. Likewise the semi mythical mobile butchers and fishmongers.

Along the dual carriageway there will be Foir'Fouille AND a GIFI if you're lucky. They will both sell surprisingly rude cartoon pictures of a big nosed, moustached drunk man spectacularly missing the toilet bowl whilst peeing above a similarly vulgar poem telling you not to do the same. Every straight laced grandma has this in her WC.

And so it must stay. FOREVER.

"Having just come back from the UK, it’s clear that the ready meals / processed food market is way more sophisticated and developed in the UK. "

Yes, but it's not a good thing is it!

France measures very well in how much super processed food is eaten, but I suspect there's quite a difference between north and south.

Yes I too cook fresh everyday. We have a great greengrocer and butcher in my Somerset village that are very popular. A lot of people dont use the supermarket 2 miles away much. Its really important for our community to have these amenities.

I'm starting to think I live in a different France. Our small town of under 3k people has 2 supermarkets. They both sell plasters, a good range of spices, fresh ginger, one sells fresh coriander (I bought some yesterday) and they both sell other fresh herbs.

@Redheadedstepchild
"A SPAR or Proxi Market which will have a unique smell and a ridiculously loud automatic bell which sets itself off when you walk in, disturbing the small dog who lives in a basket under the till"
I'm curious....do they all have small dogs under till or is that store specific 😂😂😂

@Raraskirtsagogo

Tbf we did live (in the much hated MN phrase) very rurally, so the "supermarket" was pretty small compared to UK ones - it was always an enormous treat to have a day out to a proper hypermarket or (gasp!) GrandFrais, but it just wasn't practical to do a 40 mile round trip every week.

No, I know some people on MN are sensible ;) but have you seen the threads about new cycle lane, 15min cities and that's to put trees in to replace parking space. It seems to be a mumsnet majority. And the Brits are weird about must have giant cars that they don't know how to park. As a visitor it's really noticeable

Oh god those pictures! 😆😆

Where did you visit as the Brits are not known for the must have massive cars at all,for a start we are a small island! I don't think MN these days is indicative of British Society.

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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'.

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.