"I can't believe it," said Nicole Crawford, standing outside the shuttered shopfront of Marks and Sparks' flagship Paris store on the boulevard Haussman yesterday. "I just can't believe this is happening. It's a slice of England that's disappearing from France. I'm half French, half English and totally depressed."
Throughout yesterday, grieving shoppers of all nationalities stood silent and open-mouthed before the printed notices taped to the windows of the first store M&S opened in France, way back in the mid-seventies: We inform our loyal customers that the shop is exceptionally closed.
"Oh my God, the eclairs - what am I going to do without the eclairs?" cried Gabriela Ascencio-Lane, half Mexican, half English and not in the least happy. "They cost Fr13 for four here. Go to a French patisserie and you'll be lucky to get away with Fr13 for one."
All 18 Marks and Spencer's stores in France were closed for most of the day yesterday as the 1,700 staff absorbed the news, announced to them just before opening time, that the company's continental European operation was to be wound up by December 31.
"We're in a state of shock, you have to understand it," said Sylvie, an assistant in the children's wear department. "We knew the company wasn't doing well, but we always thought our jobs would be safe - see that scaffolding there, up to the end of the road? That was the new extension."
Ms Ascensio-Lane was also worried about her future underwear needs. "They always have it in my size, it's affordable, gorgeous lacy underwear, very comfortable and it lasts for ages," she said.
The wailing of the Paris expat community was more than matched by the woe of some of Marks and Spencer's French customers. Staring longingly at a maroon woollen twin set in the window, Marcelle, 58, and Jacqueline, 56, declared themselves desolated by news.
"I've been shopping here for 15 years," said Marcelle. "The style suits me, it's good quality at a reasonable price. And there's always that little English touch."
Jacqueline said you could buy silk jumpers here for Fr300 that would cost Fr600 elsewhere. Another regular customer, Celine, said she would miss the tea and the custard creams, but that she'd stopped buying M&S clothes two or three years ago.
(Georges Zurbach, Marks and Spencer's French marketing director, confirmed Celine's astute analysis on the radio: the company's food sales were outstanding in France, he said, but clothes - 70% of turnover - were in real trouble.)
David Flitterman, who lives in Grenoble but drops in to M&S "for crisps and biscuits" whenever he's in Paris, summed it up. "So many people, French and English, are so devoted to this store. The company should try to make it work. But of course, these days it's only the shareholders who count."
