PARIS (Reuters) – The politician in charge of the greater Paris region said on Monday that the French government should allow some shops to reopen in time for the Nov. 27 “Black Friday” sales shopping day.
“They need to be able to open from November 27 onwards, which is ‘Black Friday’,” Valerie Pecresse told BFM TV, arguing that Paris’ smaller shops would otherwise suffer from competition from giant online retail companies.
France is in the middle of its second national lockdown aimed at curbing the spread of the COVID-19 virus, following an earlier shutdown which lasted from March to May.
President Emmanuel Macron’s government has set a Dec. 1 deadline for this lockdown, although the government has said it could extend it beyond that if it feels that infection numbers are not falling fast enough.
The government is coming under pressure from shops and businesses to loosen restrictions in time for the Christmas shopping period.
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Catherine Evans)
