How France Finally Bowed to the Global Economy

The City of Light is joining the modern world — or, rather, the modern world has seized Paris.

Starting next month, the French government will allow some stores to stay open late nights and on Sundays. That's so that France can wring more jobs from the miracle and curse that is global tourism.

Visitors to Paris have long known that Sunday is a day of rest — from spending. Department stores and boutiques are closed. You're supposed to do cultural stuff and spend time with your family on Sundays and at night. (A couple of years ago, Louis Vuitton tried to claim that it was a cultural institution to skirt the restrictions.)

Plus, long hours wouldn't be fair to the owners of mom-and-pop shops competing against global giants. And unions don't want their workers to work.

Now, though, Socialist President François Hollande is making front-page news with a historic change. In 12 “zones touristiques internationales” (ZTIs), shops will be able to stay open until midnight and on Sundays. “Will Paris rival New York, the city that never sleeps, with its stores open seven days and 24 hours?” the city's tabloid, Le Parisien, asked.

Yes, global economic forces have changed even stubborn Paris.

Just like New York, Paris has noticed all of those Chinese and Brazilian tourists over the past half-decade. Among Western cities, Paris is second only to London in how many foreign tourists it attracts, says MasterCard. (New York comes in third.)

Last year, those foreign visitors to Paris dropped $1,385 per city resident on hotel spending, restaurant meals and luxury-goods splurges. (In New York, they dropped only $885.)

A decade ago, the response might have been: So what? Let them shop during the day. But France, like much of the West, needs jobs. Unemployment is 10.2 percent, nearly twice America's 6.1 percent. Eighty-four percent of new jobs aren't permanent jobs with guaranteed hours, benefits and employment protections, but temporary contracts.

With domestic spending down, packs of selfie-taking Chinese 20-somethings are about the only thing that keep Paris' storied department stores open at any hour.

And workers' attitudes have changed. Younger people and other people who don't have good jobs have grasped that unions are mostly interested in protecting people who do have good jobs.

Two years ago, the makeup giant Sephora illegally opened past midnight for a while on the Champs-Élysées, so that drunk foreign girls could plonk down more of their hard-earned currency.

Sephora's workers supported the forbidden late hours — because they wanted to work more. Hollande's government started its reforms in part because the Sephora civil disobedience pointed out how irrelevant France's labor protections are for most workers today.

And France's cultural protectors have pretty much given up on keeping “international tourist zones” unique. For two decades, the Champs-Élysées has looked like any other global strip: H&M, Gap, Banana Republic, Disney, Zara, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany.

French people don't go there, so letting the stores stay open late isn't going to bother any French people. And real unique stores well off the main strips likely will remain unaccountably closed even during the weekday hours when they're already allowed to be open.

Will liberated hours prove an economic revolution? Probably not. Sunday hours will help sales and workers, but the later weekday hours probably won't mean much.

Contrary to Le Parisien's assertion, New York stores that aren't bodegas are not open 24/7. Saks Fifth Avenue in Manhattan closes at 8:30 — not much later than the Galeries Lafayette's Paris store's closing time of 8:00.

Stores that stay open into the morning hours may find soon enough that it's more of a headache in security and labor costs than it's worth.

More acutely, France is accommodating its global tourists just as the global tourist boom may be busting. China, Russia, Brazil and other exporters of big spenders are struggling with downturns, maybe even deep recessions. Luxury sales around the world are shrinking.

And that means Western cities — including New York — may have to find something to do other than sell Michael Kors purses to confused jet-lagged foreigners.

This piece originally appeared in New York Post