COMMERCE: Véronique Weingarten wants the reopening of her shop or at least the ban on the sale of non-essential products in supermarkets during the confinement
A ready-to-wear shopkeeper from Blotzheim ( Haut-Rhin ) has started a hunger strike to obtain, if not the “reopening of local shops “, at least “the stopping of the sale of non-essential items by supermarkets, ”she explained on Saturday. “I am in mourning for my store and for all the local businesses which have already gone out of business after the first confinement, ” said Véronique Weingarten who began her movement on Thursday.
Manager of the only women’s ready-to-wear store in Blotzheim, a town of some 4,500 inhabitants, she symbolically dressed in black. “Ideally, I want to be able to reopen our business like all local businesses. You can’t catch the virus here any more than in a large supermarket. It is even rather the reverse, ”she argues. Véronique Weingarten wishes at least that, as for books, the government prohibits “the sale in supermarkets of non-essential products”.
Decision taken after Emmanuel Macron’s speech
She explains that she made her decision on Wednesday evening, “just after Emmanuel Macron’s speech “. “I had to act. I didn’t want to be a little sheep, ”she says. Since Friday, the shopkeeper has taken up a position in front of her shop. She also set up a bed in her window “to sleep in front of people to show [her] determination”. After the first confinement which made him “lose 120,000 euros”, the second, “it’s the key under the door”, she assures, “I took out a loan of 100,000 euros […] that he will have to be reimbursed ”.
“The first confinement, we were put to sleep. We were promised aid that was not kept. Nothing had been said and yet the supermarkets were already selling non-essential items. It is not possible to accept that a second time, ”insists Véronique Weingarten.
