As in London there have demonstrations around the Olympic flame in Paris and given that the first parade of the flame was organised by hitler to legitimise the 1936 Games it seems quite appropriate that the chinese would do the same! BUT they have over-shadowed others here in France; the new government, set up by a new President committed to social and finacial reforms, are beginning to announce their spending plans. Or rather cutting plans! Committed to reducing Public Spending they have announced their education plan, which reduces the number of country schools and generally reduces the number of classes and therefore the teachers as well as increasing class size. The whole world is on the march and blockading schools, teachers, parents and students all involved, this closely following protests against the closure of local post offices.
Down on the coast there's trouble too, the government is reducing the number of life-guards by 9000 staff, this wont cause redundancies as they are generally part of the Gendarmery, which in itself is a brigade of the army; they will be redeployed. Seaside towns are seething about beach safety and threatening to close beaches off peak.
There are also cuts in the health service, one of which is that the state national health service no longer fund services related to circulatory problems like say varicose veins. On this one I think the government is on a winner; by the very nature of their complaint it seems unlikely that they will be making protest marches !
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
The Battle of the Pharmacies
There's an English comedian who starts his act by shouting "Where would we be if we didn't have ANY rules?" and the audience shouts back "FRANCE!" Nothing could be further from the truth; even the location and number of the corner chemists shop is regulated.
National regulations stipulate that there can be one chemists shop for every 5,000 people and a regional tribunal sits to determine any variations to the population in relation to the number of shops. Recently a village on the other side of Tarbes (our departmental town) applied for and got permission to build a new chemists. An appeal by a chemist in another village went to the tribunal, who re-did their calculations and found they had been mistaken, so they ordered the new chemists to close and close it did! It is of course possible that the tribunal is made up of existing chemists!!!! This is France after all!
I've heard it said that the richest person in a country town is the chemist not the doctor nor the notaire nor local businessmen and I have never seen a tatty chemist shop they always look as though they were re-furbished last week. Under the 5000 rule our canton qualifies for and has 2 chemist shops. One for the 5000 who live in the town and the other for the 5000 in the dozen or so villages spread around it; both are located in the town.
One shop is in centre ville the other is located on the edge of town but right next door to the Doctors group practice, this meant that practically everybody had to pass the second shop with their prescription hot off the printer clutched in their hand. Madame Mathise had also had the presence of mind (or eye for a business oppotunity) to splash out on a piece of land which she made into an off street car park next to her and the Docs. All was going very well for her until the Doctors moved into a new purpose built heath centre on the other side of town; this meant that about 75% of the population had to make a detour IF they were to visit her shop!
All was going very well for Monsieur Duval in the centre ville shop (as you can imagine!). He aquired the shop next door and expanded into it, this must have been an expensive move as his origional shop had very ornate stonework round the doors and windows and this had to be replicated. A comprehensive internal re-furb including new and additional computer stations took place and he even got in an english teacher to teach all his girls "chemists english", to corner that market.
The battle had swung his way (but not for long!) and it's begining to resemble the battle for market share between the big supermarket chains in the UK !!
I (being English I suppose) had always stayed loyal to Madame (except,that is, for Tick Treatment which is vastly more expensive at her place than chez Duval). I have to drive past her place on my way in and out of town so I suppose that makes loyalty relatively easy.
On my way to the Doctors for my 3 month check-up last week I was surprised to see her shop had closed and as I got near to the surgery saw that in a cunning midnight swoop she had relocated to a different shop only 50 yards from the Docs. This seems to have been done in secret, I visit her shop at least monthly and none of her girls had even hinted they might be moving!
Earlier I mentioned computer stations, this is because chemist shops here have them instead of counters. The health system works on a plastic card with a micro chip which is read by these computers
National regulations stipulate that there can be one chemists shop for every 5,000 people and a regional tribunal sits to determine any variations to the population in relation to the number of shops. Recently a village on the other side of Tarbes (our departmental town) applied for and got permission to build a new chemists. An appeal by a chemist in another village went to the tribunal, who re-did their calculations and found they had been mistaken, so they ordered the new chemists to close and close it did! It is of course possible that the tribunal is made up of existing chemists!!!! This is France after all!
I've heard it said that the richest person in a country town is the chemist not the doctor nor the notaire nor local businessmen and I have never seen a tatty chemist shop they always look as though they were re-furbished last week. Under the 5000 rule our canton qualifies for and has 2 chemist shops. One for the 5000 who live in the town and the other for the 5000 in the dozen or so villages spread around it; both are located in the town.
One shop is in centre ville the other is located on the edge of town but right next door to the Doctors group practice, this meant that practically everybody had to pass the second shop with their prescription hot off the printer clutched in their hand. Madame Mathise had also had the presence of mind (or eye for a business oppotunity) to splash out on a piece of land which she made into an off street car park next to her and the Docs. All was going very well for her until the Doctors moved into a new purpose built heath centre on the other side of town; this meant that about 75% of the population had to make a detour IF they were to visit her shop!
All was going very well for Monsieur Duval in the centre ville shop (as you can imagine!). He aquired the shop next door and expanded into it, this must have been an expensive move as his origional shop had very ornate stonework round the doors and windows and this had to be replicated. A comprehensive internal re-furb including new and additional computer stations took place and he even got in an english teacher to teach all his girls "chemists english", to corner that market.
The battle had swung his way (but not for long!) and it's begining to resemble the battle for market share between the big supermarket chains in the UK !!
I (being English I suppose) had always stayed loyal to Madame (except,that is, for Tick Treatment which is vastly more expensive at her place than chez Duval). I have to drive past her place on my way in and out of town so I suppose that makes loyalty relatively easy.
On my way to the Doctors for my 3 month check-up last week I was surprised to see her shop had closed and as I got near to the surgery saw that in a cunning midnight swoop she had relocated to a different shop only 50 yards from the Docs. This seems to have been done in secret, I visit her shop at least monthly and none of her girls had even hinted they might be moving!
Earlier I mentioned computer stations, this is because chemist shops here have them instead of counters. The health system works on a plastic card with a micro chip which is read by these computers
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