{"id":4640,"date":"2026-04-10T10:59:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T10:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/4640\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T10:59:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T10:59:06","slug":"french-bakeries-and-flower-shops-to-stay-open-on-labor-day-if-new-law-passes-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/4640\/","title":{"rendered":"French bakeries and flower shops to stay open on Labor Day if new law passes \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

France’s current legislation only allows businesses deemed essential, including restaurants, to remain fully open. The owners of nonessential shops can operate on the holiday but only without employees \u2014 a rule that several bakeries reportedly breached last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The controversial measure proposed by conservative party Les R\u00e9publicains was approved last year in the Senate. President Emmanuel Macron’s party, Renaissance, recently put it on the agenda of the National Assembly, the more powerful lower house of parliament, in a bid to adopt it before May 1 this year.<\/p>\n

Gabriel Attal, the former prime minister who now leads Macron’s party, has emerged as one of the bill’s most vocal supporters. He launched a baguette-branded online petition<\/a> and posted a video of him buying bread and flowers<\/a> in which he complains that “in France, on May 1, a McDonald\u2019s can be open, but an artisanal bakery cannot.”<\/p>\n

To speed up the legislative process, a lawmaker from Macron’s party put forward a motion to nominally reject the bill, but in practice it significantly curtails normal parliamentary debate on the measure and sends it straight to a joint committee of lawmakers from both the National Assembly and the Senate tasked with hammering out a compromise text.<\/p>\n

Renaissance, Les R\u00e9publicains and the far-right National Rally all voted in favor of the motion, while left-wing parties voted against it, denouncing the move as a parliamentary coup during the heated limited debate on Friday.<\/p>\n

“They don’t defend artisan bakers of our villages, they defend chains, shareholders, dividends,” Socialist parliamentary leader Boris Vallaud said.<\/p>\n