Paris has stopped H&M opening a store on the Champs-Elysees, as part of a bid to halt the “banalization” of the avenue. The report quotes 1 champagne-guzzling snob local shopkeeper as follows: “High-class Parisians don’t want to come to the Champs-Élysées,” said Serge Ghnassia, owner of the fur shop Milady, which opened on the Champs-Élysées in 1933. “It’s not prestigious; it’s not pleasant. The people who come are very common, very ordinary, very cheap. They come for a kebab sandwich and a 5-euro T-shirt.” But that doesn’t seem to be the whole story. According to the Times reporter: things [on the Champs Elysees] seem only to be getting more expensive. The opening of luxury showpieces like Cartier in 2003, Louis Vuitton’s 5-story flagship store in 2005 and the Fouquet’s Barrière hotel last year (the least expensive room is nearly $900 a night) have given the avenue new glitter So which is it? Needless to say, sitting in New York, I don’t know. And the Times isn’t telling (balanced reporting, I think). But the decision to exclude particular retailers, capriciously, by government intervention, opens up some policy questions. You can easily turn particular retailers away, but that restricts competition and amounts, in the end, to a tax on the freeholders (and a subsidy to the existing tenants). Same for a general rent cap.

the french are legislating what stores cannot be on champs elysees. why not force shops by law to open there? heh