• Air-conditioned Parisian stores must close their front doors since Monday, under penalty of a fine, in order to reduce energy consumption, according to a decree issued Friday by the town hall of the capital.

  • What do the brands think?

    20 Minutes

    went to survey businesses in the 19th arrondissement.

  • For some merchants, open doors commit the customer to enter.

    But everyone understands the ecological benefit of closing doors when the air conditioning is on.

Since Monday, in Paris, air-conditioned businesses have had the obligation to keep their doors closed when their air conditioning is on, with the exception of bars and restaurants.

“These aberrant practices must stop in the current context of climate emergency and energy crisis”, warned Friday the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, just after issuing an order.

Recalcitrant businesses risk a fine of 150 euros.

What exactly do the brands think?

20 Minutes

went to ask them the question in the 19th arrondissement, in the Crimea – Flanders – Riquet district.

“If it's mandatory, I'll put up a plastic curtain.

It doesn't matter,” calmly explains Youssef, whose food business, located on avenue de Flandres, has its doors wide open.

Youssef uses the air conditioning “from time to time, not all the time”, but never closes the door, for the good reason… he doesn't have one.

Apart from the iron curtain that he draws every evening, “his shop is wide open”.

Too embarrassing to have a door, he explains, with people “going in, going out”.

But he will buy enough to close his business, he swears, without problem.

"It's no use if the door is open"

This is roughly the opinion of businesses in the Flandres-Crmée district, which are hardly bothered by the measure, especially since the vast majority have no air conditioning.

“Savings are a good idea for the climate and for the wallet!

exclaims Ahmed, who runs the cash register in a nearby halal butcher's shop, not equipped with air conditioning.

"Of course it's no use if you have the door open," adds Zoheir, a barber whose business doesn't have air conditioning either.

“We have two drafty doors”, he explains, and the air conditioning “is expensive”.

But he notices that with the Covid, according to him, it is necessary to leave the possibility to the businesses which have the air conditioning at least to ventilate from time to time.

You have to go through the door of a pharmacy not far from the Riquet bridge to hear slightly different voices.

“For us, it's not terrible – even if ecologically it's better – because patients come more easily when the doors are open, explains Isabelle.

A closed pharmacy is not welcoming.

We have the impression that a person who wants to make an impulse purchase will enter more easily when the doors are open.

I worked in a pharmacy in the Gare de Lyon and it was open day and night…” A colleague next door disagrees.

"It's normal to leave the doors closed!"

And ecologically, it's good!

"Sounds like a good idea!"

», approves a customer who hears the conversation.

A “good idea” which will spread beyond the ring road, since the Minister for the Ecological Transition, Agnes Pannier-Runacher, announced on July 24 in

Le Journal du dimanche

that she was going to issue a decree on the subject “in the next few days”, with, as a deterrent, a fine even higher than that provided for by the town hall of Paris: 750 euros.

Policy

The government will generalize the ban on open air conditioning and illuminated advertisements

Economy

Energy: How to limit the consumption of brands and stores?

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