There’s nothing exceptional about it

“Fermeture exceptionnelle” is a phrase that everyone who lives in France is familiar with. Literally, it means “Exceptional closure” — a one-off, unexpected business closure, but there’s absolutely nothing exceptional about it.

Why? Because every business seems to unexpectedly close pretty regularly. French labour laws aren’t conducive to small businesses employing additional staff, so a shop owner might be the only person to work in the shop. It’s cheaper to lose money on rent and potential earnings by closing a shop than it is to hire someone for weekend work and any other extra hours. The result is a nation of retail businesses that often enforce their two-hour lunch breaks and stay closed on Mondays since business owners often work in their shops on Saturdays — the one day of the week that shops are typically open outside of business hours.

However, it’s not just small businesses. Here in St Jean de Sixt, I’ve seen the A4 Sheet of Closure (best said with French accent) on the closed shopfront of the local convenience store chain. Hah! There’s another name that should be changed: “convenience” stores around these touristy parts tend to close on Sundays AND public holidays outside of peak tourism months. Even the business names misrepresent themselves, with “8-à-Huit” (“8 to 8”) closing before 8pm — and taking a two-hour lunch break, of course! How about renaming these shops inconvenience stores?

Alas, even the largest of businesses in France suffer unexpected closures. I’ve seen three different post offices closed on days they’d normally be open, with hand-written signs on the doors. How does a company that has thousands of staff not have a few spares to cover shortages? With the local post office closed, I drove to Le Grand Bornand to post a letter, but of course it was a Wednesday. That’s the weekday that school is closed, so the post office is closed too. I couldn’t ask about stamp buying at the council office because it too was closed. It’s Wednesday! Habituelle !

Is any of this surprising when large government departments do the same? After checking opening times, I took time off work (my own business, so lost hours that nobody pays me for) to make the forty-minute drive to the Annecy prefecture, where I paid for parking, only to discover the prefecture was “exceptionally” closed. I lost half a day and had to repeat the process the following week. It could have been worse though. A friend waited for months after booking her appointment at a government department only to turn up to the dreaded A4 sheet of closure sign on the door.

With every size and type of business apparently so used to sticking up their own paper signs for a fermeture exceptionnelle, why don’t shop owners just change the wording to “Fermeture habituelle“?