The French call a hypermarket 'grande surface', very appropriately. Fascinating to see some staff on rollerblades!
There is, of course, a great social cost to the expansion of grandes surfaces - the death of small, family-run shops in many towns and villages, in spite of attempts by many authorities to check their growth by strict planning rules, like in UK, but their great financial muscle (Carrefour is world's second largest retailer after Walmart, with $87b a year in revenue) eventually get them what they want.

One nice thing about the French hypermarches is that there is competition among them. There are at least 4 or 5 chains that I know of ( Carrefour, Auchan, Cora, E Leclerc, Geant) Sometimes 2 or more can be located near each other. We are stuck with WalMart only here.

Carrefour actually tried to crash the US market some time ago with forays into the East Coast... but flopped. Tesco, UK behemoth, is currently trying on the Left Coast, starting with small convenience stores. But it's a tough WalMart dominated market to crash.

Carrefour doesn't care about the U.S. market anymore now that they are #1 in China and Brazil. Right now they are trying to get into India before Wal-Mart does.

>Sometimes 2 or more can be located near each other.< Imagine in Dijon and neighbourhood, 2 Carrefour, 2 Leclerc, 1 Cora, 2 Geant Casino and a lot of smaller ones like Intermarché, Super U, Marché U, Monoprix. You never have to go far.

Sam Walton
got the idea for Walmart after he'd seen French hypermarkets.

The first Carrefour i ever saw was way back in 1969, in Grenoble by the youth hostel. I freaked out first that there was such a store nearby and secondly that it was open to 10pm at night in a Europe that at that time rolled up the sidewalks bout 6-7pm.

The first ever hypermarche was a Carrefour in Sainte-Geneviève des Bois (just below Paris). It opened in june 1963. It had a surface-area of 2600 m2. An average hypermarche now has a surface-area of 8 to 10.000 m2.

The largest hypermarche in surface-area is a Carrefour in Villiers-en-Bierre; 25.000 m2. Number 9 in turnover.

The largest hypermarche in turnover is an Auchan in Velizy; € 343 million a year! It has a surface-area of 16.000 m2.

The Auchan in Val-d'Europe also has a surface-area of 16.000 m2. Number 52 in turnover!

... and that's what makes Auchan Val d'Europe bearable even on a Saturday, compared to a place like Vélizy!

For those not familiar with the metric system; to convert to square-feet; multiply by 10,8. So the largest Carrefour is 25.000 x 10,8 = 270.000 square-feet!

Acoording to Wiki the largest Wal Mart Supercenter is 24.000 m2. An average Super Center is 17.000 m2! So in surface-area they are on average larger than a hypermarche. But an average hypermarche also has a lot more food and a lot of extra stores before the actual hypermarche (which are not included in the average surface-areas above).
So in general, IMHO, hypermarches are somewhat larger in surface-area.

I like visiting supermarkets when I'm travelling; especially in the US. You can tell so much about the locals by seeing what food they eat! In the US there's lots of brightly coloured artificial food. Lots of low fat stuff too.

We have Carrefour hypermarkets in Belgium, but they're not as good as the ones in France.

>The largest hypermarche in surface-area is a Carrefour in Villiers-en-Bierre; 25.000 m2.<

Do they have shuttle buses in the store?

Ha, ha.......I surely wouldn't go there if I was in a hurry!

There is speculation that WalMart is eyeing buying Carrefour, which has several separate wealthy families and entities that own it and thus would make possible a takeover as they would reap huge profits from the sale.

This is only scuttlebut i've read but who knows - otherwsie WalMart could never compete in France without buying some big player.

Is there similar opposition to the new hypermarches as there is to the opening of Walmarts? I was thinking I noticed fewer small markets and delis this last trip to France and wondered if this was a result of larger markets.

doesn't seem to be as there are so many everywhere - but mainly well out of town on busy approach roads, or in the case of LeClerc often it seems in industrial zones.

The opposition comes from preventing these stores to open on Sundays - to protect workers and small stores as well. Indeed one candidate for President of France has made it a campaign pledge to let more small mom and pop stores open on Sunday but not les grandes surfaces.

Currently small stores owned by Muslims are often open on Sunday but i think this is a religious ruse perhaps.

Small stores can be open 24/7 as long as they have no employees (100% family operated). That's why almost all of them are run by immigrants who are willing to sleep on a pile of potatoes if they have to. In my neighborhood (a Chinese-Indian-African-Arab mix north of Gare du Nord), some of the grocery stores are open until 4 a.m.

The anti hypermarket law is based on the size. Without looking it up, I would say that it is something like "any store in excess of 5000 m² needs prefectoral approval" which means that hypermarkets have to put a lot of money on the line to obtain the approval ("we'll build all of the roads and pay for the street lighting, and we're not forgetting the orphans' fund either&quot. In Paris it is even stricter, say something like 2000 m² which is why all of the Franprix supermarkets are just a tad smaller than you would like (i.e. 1990 m²).

As for Sunday openings, the law is being chiseled little by little. In Paris there are something like 6 or 8 "tourist zones" where stores may open on Sunday "if a cultural activity is involved" -- the Champs Elysées and Bercy Village are among the authorized zones. I would say that within 5 years, Sunday openings will be authorized just about everywhere, especially in a country that prides itself in giving absolutely no concessions to religions.

Jack: as usual very edifying info for a non-French - thanks.

I don't think the anti-Sunday opening is at all due to religious sentiments. My French son just told me about polls he's seen that say 50% of French label themselves aetheists. The church is moribund in France - even having to import African priests.

Rather it's my understanding that labor unions are the bulwark against Sunday openings - to protect the traditional family Sunday - the ubiquitous Sunday family meal, still going strong from visits to my in-law family shows.

The Sunday meal began as a tradition perhaps from after folks returned from Mass but now nearly noone save old folks go to Mass it seems - 92% or so of French do not go to church - but the cherished Sunday dinner followed by a walk or some excrusion is strong. And this is what i understand is why the unions are so strongly opposed to Sunday liberalization.

I do note that several weeks before Christmas the grandes surfaces can be open it seems.

......hypermarches are worth the long
walk just to view the Wall O Yoghurt!

PalenQ, I think the current rule is something like 6 or 8 Sundays are authorized for anyone to open. 3 or 4 of them are usually in December, and the others are usually reserved for the 2 annual sales periods (January and July) -- or local events.