In Bordeaux as elsewhere in France, so-called non-essential shops will be able to reopen from next Saturday.
In her card shop, Elisabeth is busy preparing for the return of her customers.
At the microphone of Europe 1, she says she feels "the happiness of finding her customers" after several weeks of closure.
REPORTAGE
The great "phew" of relief gave way to a weekend rush for French traders, while the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron announced Tuesday the reopening from Saturday of shops considered so far as non-essential.
These professionals barely had time to rejoice, when we already have to prepare for welcoming customers this weekend with a strict health protocol, as Europe 1 has seen in the streets of Bordeaux.
In her card shop, Elisabeth is busy, but she confides in feeling "the happiness of finding her customers".
"We missed her during those three weeks of confinement," she said.
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"We want to be on top Saturday"
"We want to be on top for Saturday, but it's a pleasure! It's leaving, going forward and having a good day," adds the shopkeeper, who vacuumed to remove the accumulated dust the last few weeks.
Beyond "preparing [her] boutique", Élisabeth also wants "to decorate it, to give that magical Christmas side that we still lacked a little bit".
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"We really have stock to liquidate"
To get to Patricia, who runs a clothing store in rue Sainte-Catherine, you have to go to downtown Bordeaux, where the curtains of the stores are down for a few more days.
Since this Wednesday morning, Patricia has not had a minute: "We are not stopping [unpacking] the boxes ... We have received some novelties. We have to reinstall everything to clean. How beautiful!"
To keep customers coming back, she plans to "do some specials, a little bit, next week."
A possibility all the more necessary "because we really have stock to liquidate", she explains.
"So we will do, between quotes, a
Black Friday
week
. We have to label everything and it takes a long time!"
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"It's a little weird to do it in December. But we have no choice given all the stock we have," she concludes.
Despite the happiness of the upcoming reopening, several Bordeaux traders have expressed their concern about the extension of closure imposed on bars and restaurants.
This may weigh on the influx of customers on Saturday.