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Hope you all had a great Xmas!. We have just come back from a week in Valencia down in the south of Spain where we spent our festive season and it was wonderful. I couldn’t help noticing though the differences in  commercial practices there with regards to trading hours over the holiday season, restaurant opening times, etc, as opposed to places like France.

In France the shops close at 7pm. No shops open Sundays and the restaurants slam the doors shut by 9.30pm regardless of the time of year. Most do not serve food after 8.30 pm. In all shoppers are quite restricted, and to be honest, it is hard to catch any Xmas spirit in France as a result.

In Spain it is quite different. The shops are open 7 days a week from morning until midnight and the restaurants and cafes start trading at the time that the French ones are closing. I found doing the Xmas shopping in Spain to be a fantastic experience; it was fun, all the shops were brilliantly decorated and with Xmas carols playing over loud speakers andnativity scenes everywhere - not the austere ‘front’ that the French display in keeping with their ‘republican’ ethos…”lets celebrate Xmas but don’t mention Jesus!”.

Of course it is the difference in workplace laws between France and Spain that you notice. The French are trapped in their ridiculous and totally impractical straight-jacket of the 35 hour week with their policy of no Sunday trading thrown in for good measure.   I also noticed that a certain ‘affluence’ has crept into Spanish life, something that the French will not discover until they scrap this 35 hour nonsense and start working more hours and with better pay. It will serve the workers better and of course create the employment that is badly lacking in France; they should take a look at the Spanish example and follow suit.

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