French economist Jacques Attali has stuck to his guns over the need to reform regulations governing the country’s retail sector.
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Attali today (23 January) issued his recommendations to improve the French economy. Among his proposals, he called for the French government to find more effective replacements for key retail laws, including the loi Galland and the loi Raffarin.
The loi Galland has banned retailers from selling below-cost for the past decade. The loi Raffarin, meanwhile, has imposed severe planning requirements on retail developments over 300 sq metres.
Attali said: “Removing the lois Galland and Royer-Raffarin could lead to a consolidated lowering of consumer prices of several percentage points”. He added that reform would lead to the creation of “several hundred thousand new jobs” and a rise in the gross national product of “several tenths of a percentage point”.
To help ease through the retail reforms, Attali has urged for the integration of existing competition bodies into a single authority to focus on streamlining current commercial practices.
Attali did, however, welcome the progress made by the loi Chatel, which came into force in January and which modifies the loi Galland by requiring full account to be taken of commercial co-operation when establishing below-cost selling.
