It’s 10am on Boulevard Saint-Michel in central Paris, and Marks & Spencer is unsettlingly empty. It’s not just the shelves that are bare, but also the shop itself, with not a single customer in any of the aisles.
Two workers chat idly by the crisps section – one of the only corners of the shop that is stocked. “Some days there are small deliveries but it’s always a surprise,” one tells me when I ask whether there will be any new stock soon. “It’s been like this for the whole of January, and the worst thing is we don’t know when it’s going to get better. People are very unhappy about the situation.”
It has been more than two weeks since the Brexit transition period ended, and the stark reality of the UK’s withdrawal from the European single market is just as pronounced across the rest of France as in the M&S stores scattered throughout the capital.
