Walmart equivalent
 

Hello, Just wondering if there are any stores in France similar to Walmart Kmart etc. Also wondered if the is anything like our Dollar stores ie a Euro store.
Haven't seen any but we have limited French travels. Also wondered if the are any discount Super Markets like we have? I know about Le Geant. Thanks for your help.
Gerry

Hi
In Paris, I don't know if they are in other cities, you can find Prisunic and Monoprix. They are like small Kmarts or Walmarts, but Monoprix also has good grocery and wine departments, including fresh foods. Good way to pick up fixings for a picnic (even one in your hotel room) or cookies and mustards to take home.

Carrefour is another - again it's a supermarket, but also stocks clothes, household items, etc

Auchan is a French owned chain of "supermegamarts" that combine grocery, hard and soft goods in one location, with locations throughout Europe. They used to have a location in Houston with an excellent selection of cheeses and other foods but it closed, allegedely due to pressure from the WallyWorld expansion.

Leader Price is a discount supermarket chain offering deals for buying in bulk, among other things.

Two other megamarket chains are LeClerc and Mammouth.

We've shopped at a chain store while in Normandy called "Champion," which very much reminded me of a Kmart or WalMart - groceries plus the usual household items.

Another good hypermarché is the René Le Clerc operation. Some of the stores are vast, like a Carrefour. All the hypermarché chains offer great values and a multitude of choices. Just wandering around the grocery and produce sections is enough to make my head whirl: row after row of cheeses, frozen meals you wouldn't believe, bakeries full of gorgeous cakes and pastries and croissants freshly made...I always want to move to France on the spot!

A tip for a useful souvenir: buy one of the insulated bags (usually the store's own brand) to use for taking frozen and cold foods home in hot weather. They are cheap--around $3--and VERY useful. The friends whom I've given one or two absolutely love them. You can usually find at least one type of the bags near the frozen-foods section, but some stores have them in other areas.

Last year I saw a couple of "Euro Mart" or something like that. Just like a Dollar Store. Everything was one euro. Can't remember where those were, maybe in Germany.

So far as WalMart is concerned, the question isn't about the brand names. France has had out of town superstores/hypermarkets since Sam W was little more than an operator of a small shop in Bentonville. Indeed, even his heirs would admit that most of Sam's technical knowledge about managing big discount stores came from France.

The problem for tourists is that French hypermarkets exist because of a quirk in French planning laws which means they almost always have to be on the edge of town - and in practice, almost always always accessible only by car.

So whether it's Carrefour, Mammouth. Champion, Leclerc, Auchan, Geant, Euromarche or Continent (most of whom own US businesses), you'll hardly ever find them where tourists naturally congregate.

Put it another way. How many WalMarts do you stumble over if you're a normal, Empire State Building, Disney World, Smithsonian, visiting European tourist in the US?

Many thanks, I will start my search in just under 3 weeks and I only have 2 months to find them all.
Gerry

There's also the Casino chain.

In Paris and some larger towns, there is a discount supermarket chain called Ed which sells very cheap food and household goods - no brand names. Monoprix tends to be expensive, Franprix is cheaper. For super-cheap non-food household goods, clothing, etc, there are the Tati stores. Prices are rock bottom ("Tati by name, tatty by nature"...)

Just for info, Mammouth has been bought out by Auchan, and Continent was taken over by Carrefour. Meanwhile, just to complicate matters, Casino (Géant) wholly owns Franprix and Leaderprice, and part owns Monoprix. So much for competition, huh?

FYI, if you pass stores that have Brico in the name, they're usually DIY places, along the lines of HD. Mr. Brico is one example. Not much there for U.S. shoppers, although you can find some nifty tools and Euro style home accessories (door handles, drawer pulls, etc.) pretty cheaply.

We were lucky to find a Champion in a mall off Place de Italie, just around the corner from our hotel. We did a couple of picnic meals from them and stocked up on some mustards, jams and foie gras (canned) to bring home.

Underhill, we saw a big sign for Casino in the 13th, didn't investigate because I thought it was - gulp - a casino! Duh.

Interesting thread, especially since it has been rumored that WalMart is in discussions to possibly acquire Carrefour.