The recession in France

The recession has certainly made itself felt in rural France and I can name several local businesses that have recently gone to the wall.

A once thriving cafe has closed it’s doors after a very mediocre summer season; their fate has in a way been helped along by the owners habit of informing staff to ignore foreign tourist customers sitting at their tables. When the public are your bread and butter you cannot afford to pick and choose who you serve at times like these.

The popular pizza shop has also folded – they operated on a ‘cash only’ basis and refused to introduce a card payment facility. Who has cash these days…? but this is a typical example of bad french customer service. Actually two shops in a nearby village well visited by tourists from around the world packed it in rather than instal a credit card machine – they too had this ‘cash only’ mentality.

The hotel in the village has shut its doors right through the winter – a first for this estalishment. The owner has placed a sign with a phone number on the door should anyone want accommodation – experience has shown us that people will not bother with that option.

The local baker has seriously downsized his daily production and lamented to me the poor downturn in the regions commerce in 2008.

Strangely the only business still thriving is the village hairdresser – but then ladies will always want their hair done no matter how the economy is!

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