Sales begin in Paris amid worries for economy

French government ministers led the country's semiannual consumer pilgrimage known reverently as "The Sales" on Wednesday, hoping to jump-start a stagnant economy.

With skies still dark over Paris, small groups of shoppers milled outside the entrances of two iconic French department stores, Galeries Lafayette and Printemps, ahead of their 8 am openings. In northern France, shoppers crawled under a store's rolling metal shutter as it rose.

The highly orchestrated ritual is heavily promoted — and regulated — by the government, and the poor state of the country's economy has given the sales even more importance this year. France's gross domestic product grew a paltry 0.3 percent in the third quarter of 2011, according to France's statistics agency.

Insee expects that the country's economy contracted in the fourth quarter and will again in the first quarter of 2012 — the technical definition of a recession.

"We need to boost consumption, which is the driving force of our economy," Finance Minister Francois Baroin told a frenzied group of reporters who trailed him around the stores after cutting a ribbon at the entrance to Galeries Lafayette. "We hope that the success of these sales will help a recovery in consumption."

But salespeople in the department stores said the first day seemed calmer than in years past.

Stores discount merchandise in "promotions" throughout the year, but there are only two officially designated sales periods each year — making each one a sort of state-sponsored circus.

The government is slowly trying to encourage merchants to hold more sales — but the rules that regulate such events run a full page on the Ministry of the Economy's website and the twice-a-year rhythm remains deeply ingrained in the French mindset.

Commerce and Tourism Minister Frederic Lefebvre took aim on Wednesday at these strictures, saying that, for example, stores should be encouraged to open on the first Sunday of the sales.

Five times a year, any French mayor can give stores in his realm a dispensation to open on Sunday — usually used on the busy shopping days before Christmas.

"We're asking ourselves about the problems we face in terms of welcoming (tourists)," Lefebvre told reporters. "One of the things that comes to mind is the fact that we don't open enough on Sundays."

He warned that Paris would lose out to London and Rome if its stores didn't open more on Sundays, noting that 60 percent of tourists to Paris cite shopping among the reasons for their visit.

The die-hard shoppers who squeezed in some bargain-hunting before work or school on Wednesday said that the sales existed regardless of the state of the country: there's the economy, and then there are The Sales. Bad economy or good, the shoppers said they showed up every year, having checked out and tried on favored styles ahead of time.

"We come for the deals," said Marie-Noelle Palu, 24, who works in a restaurant. "I do reconnaissance before, and when there are things I like, I come — systematically."