France's top baguette baker ordered to stop working seven days a week

France's top baguette baker has sparked a national debate about the country's attitude to work after being ordered to stop working seven days a week as it is against the law.

Stephane Cazenave, who runs a boulangerie in Saint-Paul-les-Dax, Landes, faces a 1,500 euro fine for flouting a 1999 prefectural order obliging any bakery to remain closed for at least one day per week.

The ruling against Mr Cazenave, which he says will see him lose 250,000 euros a year and force him to lay-off some of his 22 staff, has ignited a storm in France, with the baker's plight seen as symbolising all that is wrong with anti-business regulations stifling the economy.

"I am treated like a thug just because I asked to work," said Mr Cazeneuve, winner of the "best baguette of France" award last year for his crusty loaves. "Working shouldn't be a crime in France," he told France 3.

"I opened seven days a week three and a half years ago. I create jobs and wealth and I don't see why one would hinder me doing so."

He emphasised that all his employees were given two days off a week, and that the ban was on the bakery itself.

His case has succeeded in galvanising the fractious opposition centre-Right, split over how to deal with the far-Right Front National.

"That work can be seen as a crime in our country and the passion of a craftsman bridled in such a way should be a wake up call for us to the absurdity of our system," wrote Francois Fillon, a former prime minister with the centre-Right UMP party. A petition called "Let Stephane Cazenave work" has garnered 30,000 signatures.

^{Stephane Cazenave posing with his trophy for the "best baguette of France" award}

Francois Bayrou, head of the centrist Modem group, also supported the baker, saying: "There is perpetual suspicion, an inquisitorial doubt about those who want to work."

In a country whose unemployment has hit record levels, he said: "One gets the impression that the desire to create new jobs is viewed as something bad in France and is punished."

Alba Ventura, a political commentator on RTL radio, said the theory of "stopping people who can or want to work more" to create jobs was precisely the same argument as that used for the 35-hour working week, whose effects many see as disastrous.

The Socialist government insisted it is promoting more flexibility, but that the bakers themselves helped draw up the current rules.

Jean-Pierre Crouzet, head of the national baker's and confectioner's confederation said it made sense to uphold the rules to encourage competition by obliging people to buy bread elsewhere at least once a week.

"They aren't to prevent people from working but to ensure a balance, to promote the quality of products," he said.

The ruling comes as French MPs are in the midst of debating a bill seeking to cut red tape and inject more flexibility into the French labour market.

Among the most hotly debated proposals by Emmanuel Macron, the economy minister, is to easing restrictions on Sunday shop openings, which opponents insist ensure retail workers time with the family.

Proponents argue higher wages for Sunday work would help workers top up earnings and that shifts would be voluntary.

A recent poll found that two-thirds of French support Sunday shopping.