Contributors

5.1.08

Ouvert le dimanche...


I was scanning some of my favorite news websites and found the headline on French newspaper Le Monde quite surprising:
Les magasins de meubles peuvent désormais ouvrir tous les dimanches
("Furniture stores may now open every Sunday")
One of the things that surprised us during our first few months in what is usually considered one of the most secular nations on earth is the fact that almost everything is closed on Sunday. We left "Christian" America where you can do and buy anything you want on the Lord's Day and went to a country where only a small percentage go to church, but where most businesses remain closed (except for food merchants during the morning hours).

When is the last time one would have seen a headline like that in the US, with people acting surprised that businesses might open on Sunday?

Don't think that the French close their businesses because it's the Lord's Day. That may be the origin, but for the most part Sunday is guarded for families. Whatever their reason, it's a shame to see that change, just like it's a shame to see that Sunday has become a day hardly different from any other here in the US.

2 comments:

Pecheur said...

OK, cool, so you can translate "desormais" as "now"

I've been trying to put the dictionary definition to i and it felt so heavy. But now i know I use "now" which works a lot better

Anonymous said...

I guess the translation would technically be something like "from now on," but hey, glad you learned something!