"Paris Shuts the door to Sunday Consumerism"

Paris city council decided Monday against allowing more shops to open on Sundays following an impassioned plea from the Socialist mayor to reject a "world where consumerism reigns supreme."

- Do you want a world where consumerism reigns supreme? Or a world that allows for silence, intimacy, culture, privacy, family life as well as intellectual and spiritual life? - Mayor Bertrand Delanoe told the council.

French laws on Sunday commerce are far more restrictive than those in the United States and Britain but less so than in Germany, where special permission is needed for shops to open in Berlin.

Keeping retail businesses closed has helped cement the tradition of the Sunday family meal that many in France still hold dear.

President Nicolas Sarkozy stared down opposition from the church, unions, conservatives in his right-wing party and the left when he pushed through legislation allowing more Sunday shopping last year.   Source