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BAKERY

Here’s where you’ll find the best baguette in Paris

The crown for the best baguette in Paris has been awarded once again.

Published: 18 March 2016 14:51 CET
Here's where you'll find the best baguette in Paris
A jury member carefully assesses the baguettes. Photo: AFP

The annual Grand Prize for the best baguette in Paris has been awarded to two bakers from La Parisienne, located on Rue Madame, in the sixth arrondissement.

Bakers Mickaël Reydellet and Florian Charles received the prize, which comes with €4,000 in cash and the honour of baking a fresh batch for the presidential Elysée palace every day for the next year.

Reydellet runs five bakeries in the capital, but it was the Rue Madame branch where the winning baguette was made. The others are located on Rue Monge, Boulevard Saint-Germain, Rue D'Odessa and Rue Coustou.

Reydellet told Le Parisien: “I did not vote for Francois Hollande but it is always rewarding to meet the President”.

All baguettes entered for the prize are submitted to a rigorous judging process and strict criteria.

They must measure between 55 and 65 centimetres in length, weigh between 250 and 300 grams, and have a salt content of no more than 18 grams per kilo of flour.

The 155 entries were judged according to five crucial critera: smell, taste, appearance, crispiness and how well-baked they were.

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo praised the winning bakers on Twitter.

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BAKERY

French baker given a legal warning after refusing to take a day off

A young baker in a wealthy suburb of Paris has been given a legal warning after he refused to close his boulangerie for one day a week, as is required by French law.

Published: 26 February 2021 17:08 CET
French baker given a legal warning after refusing to take a day off
Bakeries must by law close for one day a week. Photo: Christophe ARCHAMBAULT / AFP

Romaric Demée, the young business owner, admitted he was knowingly breaking the law by keeping his shop in the suburb of Nanterre open seven days a week.

He has been given a month to inform the court of his chosen closing day. If he misses this deadline, he will be given a €1,000 fine per day, as well as for each day the closure is not respected.

“It’s unfair competition,” Tarek Rouin, the owner of a neighbouring boulangerie, told French newspaper Le Parisien.

The neighbourhood’s boulangeries had regular meetings, he said, to agree which days each of them should close. “I take Friday off, another colleague closes on Monday . . . But Romaric has never wanted to get involved.”

Demée told Le Parisien: “Corner shops and petrol stations are allowed to open every day of the week. We must be the only profession which is forced to lose a whole day’s earnings per week.”

READ ALSO: Should French shops stay closed on a Sunday?

The issue of whether shops should stay closed on Sundays has proven quite controversial in France.

In recent years things have been changing, especially in big cities, where you will always find something open on a Sunday.

READ ALSO: Paris department stores finally open on Sundays

In 2017, François Hollande chipped away at France’s laws with the creation of special international tourism zones where shops could operate on Sundays.

Baguette consumption shot up during France’s first lockdown in the spring, leading the labour ministry to approve a special waiver allowing bakeries to remain open seven days a week to keep up with demand.

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