Paris, France:
Visitors to France should be allowed to shop till they drop seven days a week, the country's foreign minister said on Tuesday, weighing into a fierce debate over restrictions on Sunday trading.
"Tourism is an absolutely key sector in France: seven percent of jobs, with considerable room for growth," Laurent Fabius told RTL radio.
Fabius, who now also handles the trade and tourism portfolios following a government reshuffle, added: "The tourist who comes on a Sunday and goes to a store that is shut is not going to come back on Thursday.
"For tourists, shops must be open (on Sundays)," he added, saying workers would be duly compensated.
Retailers in France can only open on a Sunday under very specific conditions and recent court rulings have forced some flagship stores on the Champs-Elysees in Paris to end late-night shopping that was hugely popular with tourists.
The rulings were the result of legal action taken by trade unions in defence of the principle that late-night and Sunday working should be exceptional rather than the rule.
But they infuriated those employees who want the extra hours and higher pay that come with such shifts.
The issue of trading hours is part of a broader debate about France's competitiveness and a perceived lack of flexibility in its labour market which some say hinders job creation.
A parallel legal battle over the right of DIY stores to open on Sunday was resolved by the Socialist government deciding to allow them to keep doing so until mid-2015, to allow time for a revamp of the law.
Union representatives were critical of Fabius' wading into the debate, but the French Trade Council, which represents retailers employing 3.5 million people, welcomed the minister's comments.
"It is distressing to see tour operators organising departures from Paris on a Saturday evening to go to neighbouring, more open countries, thereby depriving France of significant sales and the associated jobs," said the council's president, Gerard Atlan.
With many visitors from outside Europe taking in both cities on short trips, Paris is particularly vulnerable to competition from London, where most shops are open for at least six hours on Sundays.
But Joseph Thouvenel of the CFTC union underlined that big department stores were already authorised to open on Sunday in tourist areas and warned that a general liberalisation would destroy at least as many jobs as it created.
"It is France's history, its traditions and its art of living that have made it the number one tourist destination in the world," Thouvenel said.