No retreat on Sunday opening
President Sarkozy tells party rebels that the law will be changed.
PRESDIENT Sarkozy has insisted there is no question of him withdrawing his Sunday trading bill, as has been rumoured.
His plans to liberalise Sunday trading laws – make it easier for shops to open – have met with strong opposition from traditionalists in his own party. However in a meeting with UMP members of parliament he said there would be no going back.
He said: “What people get tired of is when people don’t keep their promises.
“If I don’t do this, I will be like all the presidents of the Republic who stopped making reforms after two years.”
The president also criticised the methods of adversaries to the reforms, singling out two MPs who had written columns in Le Figaro and Le Monde – “that’s not a very suitable means of expression. It serves our opponents, not our ideas.”
He stressed he never intended to allow everyone to open on Sundays, but refuted the idea of keeping Sunday’s as a traditional day of rest. He cited the example of America. “At the Washington G8 summit Bush said to me ‘May God watch over you,’ – but over there all the shop are open on Sunday.”
From the claims of opponents “you’d think we wanted to make 12-year-olds work on Sundays, that we are torturers and slavers,” he said.
Sarkozy said he planned to meet with the opponents and the prime minister shortly, to thrash their differences out.
Photo:Medef
