“Look, it is Saturday morning and at this time, there should be a line … There, there is no one …” Michael Angel, owner of the Arcades pharmacy, in Noisy-le-Grand (Seine-Saint- Denis), multiplies the slip by speaking of a “third confinement”.
He is one of those pharmacists who continue to practice, throughout France, in shopping centers closed since the announcements of Prime Minister Jean Castex on January 29, targeting non-food surfaces of more than 20,000 square meters to limit the spread of the Covid -19.
In the Arcades, only the Carrefour and the Paul bakery remain open in this gigantic regional shopping center. “But Carrefour and Paul are big chains. We are the only independent workers to work and it is an extremely violent situation, warns the pharmacist. When the center was closed, we went from 1500 customers per day to 500. From Monday, it was -60% attendance, even -70%. “
About fifty professionals in great difficulty
Of the few hundred pharmacists still open in these centers, about fifty are in serious financial difficulty. All in a profession that has 22,000 professionals. The most affected have gathered informally via a WhatsApp thread, where they exchange in order to prepare the response. About ten of them have already seized a lawyer to negotiate with the services of the State.
Because they have no answer, so far, as to the granting or not of specific aid (solidarity fund, loan guaranteed by the State, partial unemployment, etc.) promised by the Prime Minister for the businesses in the shopping centers concerned. .
“Some of us would prefer to be closed administratively because it’s too hard to lose so much money,” says Michael. But we know that our presence is precious. We have proven our usefulness since the first confinement. We have always been there. We do 300 tests per day, we know how to manage flows… ”
Very expensive rents in shopping centers
It requires the guarantee of obtaining state aid. “Those who are closed are entitled to it, and the State is considering taking charge of their rents,” he observes. To us, who are obliged to be open because our profession is regulated, no one answers us. “
Pharmacists consider that there is therefore a “breach of equality with other businesses in the centers, but also with pharmacies in town centers, where economic life continues”.
Newsletter The essentials of 93
A tour of the news in Seine-Saint-Denis and the IDF
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Michael Angel mentions rents, which are much higher in shopping centers than elsewhere. And with much larger surfaces too and the payrolls that go with it: in Noisy-le-Grand, the pharmacy has forty employees. It therefore requires support proportional to the decline in its turnover.
“A ghost town”
“We are told that if we exceed the -50% loss, we could be entitled to the solidarity fund …”, continues the professional. Except that some oscillate precisely around this figure.
This is the case in Aubervilliers for Benoit Coat, pharmacist at Le Millénaire. And who also describes his dismay: “You have to come here to realize what it’s like to work in a closed center. All the curtains are drawn, the main alleys are empty, the parking lots too, it’s a ghost town… ”he breathes.
Like his colleague from Noisy-le-Grand, he is also really not convinced that we are infected here more than elsewhere. “The paradox is that I have 300 square meters of sales area: you can come with a stroller, a cart and people in wheelchairs can move around,” he continues. And next to that, in any pharmacy in downtown Paris, it’s very tight, people are lining up one behind the other, there is no respect for distances… ”
The curfew at 6 pm, “a double penalty”
All also note that this closure is even harder to live with than during the first two confinements, where tobaccos in shopping centers had remained open, where restaurants were quickly able to sell take-out and click and collect shops. .
The curfew was also seen as a “double penalty”. “As a pharmacist, we can have exemptions to stay open after 6 pm, recalls Benoit Coat. But in the center, the whole structure goes on standby and we all have to close at the same time. Especially since after 6 pm, in normal times, these are the strongest hours, until 8 pm… ”
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