Ian, just to follow up on your descriptions... Regulations for business hours here in Germany have been slowly loosened only during the past decade or so. Our supermarket is now open from 7 am till 10 pm from Monday till Saturday, though as a rule, shops are normally closed entirely on Sunday. Bakeries are one of the exceptions still few in number, and thus may open on Sunday mornings at least. I've long been thinking about whether it would be sensible to allow shops to open on Sundays – I'm sure being able to at least shop for food might be very welcome to shift workers, but on the other hand, I do not subscribe to the idea of leaving just about everything to "the market" as I personally do not at all think it's a fundamentally beneficial kind of concept. Store sales have been liberalised only in recent years, too – previously, there were defined periods for summer and winter sales, much like it still appears to be the case in France.