Since then, secularization has drawn its journey, the consumption company has imposed its law, but Sunday has been maintained as worth it and remains – even today – one special day. Religions are part of it, but not only. Since the 19th century, secular and left movements made Sunday rest one of their fights. To the point that this first day of the week has become an ideological battlefield between two conceptions of society: that promoting the needs of the market and its competition, profitability and competition, freedom of entrepreneurship and consuming, and that wishing to preserve a time of common rest, one day “without”, synthesize Jean-Yves Bouslin and Laurent Lesnard in their work Sunday battles (Presses Universitaires de France, 2017). Reading the arguments of each other, we perceive that the question of Sunday work is much more than an economic debate: it raises above all social and philosophical issues.
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In the name of family chicken
In the 19th and 20th centuries, whether in the Anglo-Saxon or French-speaking world, the fight in favor of a weekly and Sunday rest brings together amazing coalitions, aligning Protestants or Catholics (including the popes), with secular movements, unionists, workers and socialists. For two hundred years, on Sunday has done the campaign parish priest with a good complexion socialist. The family photo is only more folk, and the tasty family component.
The social movement did so much for Sunday that he enabled him to preserve him for a long time. For example, the important French law of 1906 on weekly rest does not contain religious arguments. François Hollande himself took over. “The 2012 fighthe underlined in the middle of the electoral campaign, It is to preserve the principle of Sunday rest, that is to say to allow workers to devote one day of the week to their family, sport, culture, freedom. And I will watch out. “ Mass was not mentioned by the future president, but Christian democracy could only acquire in the name of its doctrine which is distrusted with unbridled consumerism and profitability to all crons.
Another argument of the followers of Sunday rest is the maintenance of a common day of rest, the only way to bring together families and friends. “A company must be able to afford a common day of rest”wrote the Jesuit Charles Delhez in Freeresuming in substance the words of the socialist Jean Jaurès (1898-1914). “”Society is not just a aggregate of individuals who each living at their own pace, but also a body with its own rhythm, its festive moments, its downtime where we resume breathes and redo its strength. “
The gradual disappearance of Sunday rest divides traders
In the same vein of ideas, researchers Jean-Yves Bouslin and Laurent Lesnard plead so that the only activities that can open on Sundays are those that promote moments of sharing (restaurants, museums, libraries, etc.). Trade, in their eyes, is not part of it. In addition, they argue, several studies demonstrate that Sunday work mainly affects popular classes and increases the risks of family conflicts, dilution of social ties and fragmentation of society.
Despite this large coalition, the Sunday battle seems partly lost. Whether in France or Belgium, Sunday work is gradually becoming commonplace in the name of economic rationality. Arizona’s latest measures are an example.
Do you approve of the generalization of the opening of stores on Sunday, decided by the government of Wever?
