After eighteen months of pandemic, experts and UK politicians were fearful GERMANY of the repercussions that ITALY Covid-19 would have on the SWISS AUSTRIA French economy. But the PORTUGAL end of the summer period was marked by a particular optimism from within the government. The worst did not come to pass in the end. Our country has seen an economic bounce back this summer according to the reports from Banque de France. In restaurants, debit card bills increased by 5% in the month of August despite the resurgence of the virus, the prevalence of the Delta variant and the implementation of the health pass (la passe sanitaire), which was subject to several protest marches throughout the country. More evidence comes from the pleasantly surprising unemployment figures published in mid August: the unemployment rate has practically gone back to the same level as the end of 2019, to 8% of the active population, say INSEE, while others had predicted 10%. Job creation also has the wind in its sails. As for the “wall of bankruptcies” feared by observers, it seems to be distant, although we may have to wait several months for when all the loans from the government have to be paid back before we know exactly how healthy the French economic tissue is. We do have to be wary of celebrating too early as the road out of the crisis is still long and littered with pitfalls. It’s long because we mustn’t forget how far we fell: with a decrease of around 8.3% of our GDP in 2020 (compared to a European average of 6% and 3.6% in the U.S.), even the very optimistic growth rate of 5.5% (Banque de France) or 6% (government) expected for 2021 would not get us back onto the same GDP level as before the crisis. If we maintain the same growth rate it will take until spring 2022 to surmount the symbolic level of GDP from the end of 2019 while the Americans are crossing this highly important
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psychological threshold at the end of summer 2021. So while the economic reports from the summer of 2021 seem encouraging, what does it really mean for the dynamism of our boardsports industry, for consumption and attendance in shops this season? Overall, the 2020 summer was exceptional in terms of visitation numbers and turnover in shops. The Coronavirus crisis generally boosted participation in outdoor sports and so boardsports naturally benefitted from this craze. The vast majority of shops enjoyed a pretty exceptional summer season. Everyone was wondering how summer 2021 would go. After the new restrictions and partial or total re-confinements in the autumn and winter we were in a legitimate position to ask ourselves the question about the potential of the 2021 summer season. At Nausicaa with their 3 shops in Normandy and Brittany, the findings are more than encouraging. Indeed, Thomas Lamora, owner and manager of the 3 shops in Caen, Cherbourg and Saint Malo entrusts to us that: “Despite the three months of closures in 2020, we had a more than positive year with a rise of 15% compared to 2019.” He adds: “to this day in 2021, in the first 8 months we are up 33% on the year 2020 which was already a really good year.” Thomas continues: “in 2021, the start of the year, and more particularly the spring, was extraordinary with a rise of 12% on the number of receipts and the average basket was up by 19%. The months of July/August seem to have marked the return of more traditional activity in shops.” The results seem identical way down in the south at Waimea Surf Shop in Anglet where owner and manager of the shop Xabi Anton tells us: “We didn’t suffer a loss of turnover due to Covid-19, we are actually growing with an increase of 10% on 2020 which was already a
