Today on my way to the metro station I saw a crowd of people outside a “House of Hoops” store. They sell sports shoes. It was between 8 and 8:30 am, and there weren’t crowds outside any of the other shops around.
So, I guessing here, but was this a French “Black Friday” knock-on effect? The store is basically a Foot Locker store. Do they have Black Friday sales in all their stores, regardless of country? It seems weird to me, since Black Friday is tied to Thanksgiving in my mind, and obviously that’s not a big thing here in France (though I did get more “Joyeux Thanksgiving”s than I expected yesterday). But there was a big crowd…
I wish I had been able to get a picture, but I was a bit self-conscious about taking one at the time…
According to CNN, Black Friday has indeed crossed the Atlantic — and resulted in pandemonium! See http://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/28/world/europe/black-friday-uk/. One of the hidden cultural ironies here is that the French crowd I saw seemed to be polite and conscientious. So much for another couple of stereotypes…