This sign is one of those cliches based in truth. The French are serious about their time off and many of the smaller businesses in our neighborhood have closed up shop for a few weeks. (The chain stores stay open, presumably because of their ability to rotate staff leave.) Traffic is light. And there actually seemed to be more tourists than residents at our neighborhood open air market last Saturday.
But not everyone is on vacation. Far from it. When the retail business shuts down for the month, the painters, plasterers, and fixer uppers move in. From what I can tell, August appears to be a busy time for renovation and remodeling. One of our neighborhood boulangeries has been completely gutted, right down to the studs. Since there was a steady stream of business there and often lines out the door, my guess is that they will be back at the rentrée with fresh walls, cases, counters, flooring, and windows. Time off for the working man come September? The only thing I know for sure is that the first general strike of the season is the 7th. Sounds like a good day to go fishing to me.
4 comments:
As a "Parisiamercian", I'm enjoying the tail end of my 2-week vacation. Sounds like I'm going to need the rest if the next strike is the 7th!
Let's hope it's a short and sweet strike...and nothing on the 12th when we arrive...last time the trains went on strike..while we were on them...
Thanks for putting the date of the strike up... and luckily I had also been forewarned by another friend ... i will be in Paris on that day.... coming home on 9th.
I had booked my tickets before I heard about it , but how would we know, not from France.
Ah, so this is why! I have been wondering how come they close for so long, of course now I know :) A refit does take quite a long time and aren't the boulangeries in France just fitted out lovely sometimes?
I took a pic of a very similar sign yesterday also :)
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