“Commerce is bad”, we regularly hear in debates about opening shops on Sundays or public holidays. Today in Paris – All Saints’ Day, a public holiday – many shops were open.
But the Louvre was closed.
“It’s a Tuesday”, you will reply, with understanding or annoyance depending on your views on the subject. And while foreign tourists, here for several days, no doubt build this peculiarity into their sightseeing plans – if only because they have to – one may bitterly regret that local tourists, from Paris or the Île-de-France region, cannot enjoy this cultural offer on a day off.
Yet no argument can reasonably be opposed: there are already several teams to open six days out of seven – the 35-hour week requires it… – so it would only be a matter of creating jobs and organising work.
But no doubt culture has to be earned… On this rainy day, then, the “hoi polloi”, who work during the week and are not masters of their own hours, are left with television or the supermarket…
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