Residents in Lusigny-sur-Barse, a small French country town 100 miles southeast of Paris, are supporting Cédric Vaivre, owner of La Boulangerie du Lac, after labour inspectors imposed a fine of €3,000 for the offence of opening seven days a week.
Mr Vaivre, 41, who is the town’s only baker, broke regulations which decree that shopkeepers and artisanal trades must close their premises at least one day a week. Such rules apply across France, which tightly regulates the location and working hours of bakers in particular.
A petition in support of Mr Vaivre gathered 400 signatures yesterday after national television reported the heavy fine. Christian Branle, the mayor of the town of 2,000, appealed for common sense. “We’re in a small rural community with no other baker,” he said. “In a tourist area, it seems vital that we can have businesses open every day during the summer. There is nothing worse than closed shops when there are tourists.”
Although bakeries, grocer’s shops and cafés are vanishing from villages and small towns across France, trade associations defend the limits to working hours in the name of fair competition and ensuring rest time. “The baker is getting up to work at the oven at 4am and often stays open till late. He has to have time off,” an official at the National Bakers’ Confederation said.
Local labour inspectors keep a special eye on boulangeries. In 2015 they made news by fining four in the southwest for staying open too long.
Mr Vaivre has not paid his fine yet and is hoping that the authorities will revoke it.
In addition to enforcing rigid working hours, France applies rules to ensure that its local boulangers and patissiers stick to the traditional methods. They still supply 65 per cent of the nation’s bread and pastries.
