What has super-distribution changed in our lives? 60 years ago, in June 1963, the first hypermarket in France, a Carrefour store, opened in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, in Essonne. Decryption with the sociologist Jean Viard.
Supermarkets changed our consumption patterns, exactly 60 years ago when in June 1963, the first hypermarket in France opened, a Carrefour store in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, in Essonne. A store, at the time blessed by a priest, sponsored by Françoise Sagan. Hypermarkets over 2,500 m2 and up to 20,000 m2, these large shopping centres, what has changed in France?
franceinfo: Was it really a big Jean Viard event, the arrival of a first hypermarket in France?
John Viard: Yes, first of all, it was the time when we were fascinated by the United States, and then it was a whole new way of buying because we had small shops, you had to go in, ask if you could touch. And then you come in, you have your shopping cart, you load up your shopping cart, and you have a feeling that nothing costs anything, because you’re not paying for the parts one by one, so that was a big change.
But afterwards, you have to think about it in a territory where we have created 63,000 roundabouts, where we have created thousands of supermarkets, we have created ZUPs and ZACs, etc. and in the middle, we put the car. And so, the supermarket is the complement of the car to go home, and basically, we have completely transformed the French territory with all of this equipment.
It’s much more than a revolution in consumption patterns, purchasing patterns. Has it structured our territories in the long term?
We went from five kilometers per day and per Frenchman, at the time, when we opened the first supermarket, and today, we are at 60 kilometers per day and per Frenchman. Of these kilometers, there is a third used for the home-work journey, another third used for weekends and holidays and the last third used for shopping, picking up the kids, we do little almost 20 kilometers a day, just in these activities. So there is a whole new relationship to the territory.
We are in the process of rediscovering small towns, medium-sized towns, as absolutely magnificent places of social ties, of conviviality, we work from home, so we can go to very large cities only twice a week. There is a new birth of small towns taking place. But there, I think that the period when the concrete restructured the ZUPs, the supermarkets and the roundabouts, this period, I think that it is fortunately behind us.
So structural changes caused by these large hypermarkets that are setting up on the outskirts, but obviously also changes in the mode of purchase, in consumption?
One of the major consequences is that we have democratized access to cheap objects. We have gone from a few hundred objects in a house to thousands. Even among the most popular people, there are a lot of objects, convenient objects, they are not piled up objects that are useless, but the destitution in a popular post-war house, there is no there was almost nothing. For what ? Because these structures, including afterwards, imported cheap products.
When you go to a supermarket, 70% of the objects come from Asia. Objects, not food. And that’s why these surfaces are increasingly increasing fresh food, local food. First to legitimize a speech: “We are from here and the tomatoes, they come from the end of the street, etc.”, mBut what’s more, it’s true, it’s to make it fresh.
But this model is partly outdated, because what is happening today is the explosion of delivery, anything heavy, complicated or rare. We are in the process of separating a revival of the nearby and the small shop, and suddenly, the very, very large supermarkets – there are only a few hundred of them – the hyper hyper, these are going to have a problem. Unless they are very specialized, because indeed those who are in chains, they have a recoil effect because the delivery obviously pulls the rug out from under them.
So today, there is this pendulum movement, a throwback with different forms of course?
Local, but associated with delivery. The main thing is still delivery, whether for pizza, pharmacists are also getting started, books, etc. that is to say tomorrow, lots of items will be delivered. In our company, there is 10% of employment, it is logistics, drivers, etc. and therefore the question of the delivery, the structuring of the delivery, its ecological impact – because it is much more rational to deliver 10 families in a street with an electric van, than to go with cars to do their shopping .
So there is a whole ecological issue of mobility in the circulation of objects. And the local society is essentially a pedestrian society. So behind these issues, there is a completely different relationship to ecology, territory, carbon and low carbon. So there is all this that is changing in our societies and completely transforming our relationship to the territory.