If that's what you prefer, that's perfectly fine. If other people prefer to shop with Amazon, that's also perfectly fine. Let the market decide rather than government bureaucrats.
Oh and then there are those governments who don't care about votets after election. That's why I prefer the market, YMMV
A free market says that anyone can buy any product/service any way that they (as an individual) like, as long as that product/service is available at a price they can afford.
To me[fn], #1 sounds like "mob rule" and #2 sounds like "freedom to choose".
[fn] I am certain that many will disagree with this formulation.
People only produce profitable things, and that profit has to be significant, i.e. 3x for many food items. So you get a few corporation with billion dollar budgets that dominate the market with variations of the same thing, 100s of kinds of potato chips or whatever. And shut out variety, health and so on. You have choice to buy, but the seller has the choice to sell you whatever and destroy smaller competitors through competition and limit variety. Those shelves cost a lot of money and only the most profitable things stay on them, that's by design.
You can not compete with these guys because they have an economy of scale and you will no matter how hard you try achieve the same level of efficiencies to have any significant impact on the market. And even if you do, they will copy you or buy you out and then slowly turn whatever you were trying to do in the profit objective, corrupting it.
You should be lobbying Parisians to vote with their wallets instead of lobbying government to use violence to satisfy your preference. Of course, Parisians are already voting with their wallets, and if Amazon really is a threat to local shops, then Parisians obviously prefer Amazon's offering.
People are dumb idiot sheep well under the thumb of corporations. They are irrational and yet act in predictable ways when serviced by large corporations which are looking to create a monoculture.
If you want any sense of culture, of variety, of difference, then you should never ever buy this argument of letting people vote with their wallets, because we know what that leads to, it leads to the cheapest lowest cost goods and economies of scales dominate the market and create a monoculture.
Big fish at the expense of the little guys always win this game of letting people vote with wallets. And those big fish are usually not local and they sell everyone the same thing, all over the globe.
Going back to the original topic, IF I am doing a project in an area without too many fresh food choices because my neighbors like crappy food (and for right now, I am), isn't having a big corporation like Amazon being able to ship me fresh food that isn't available to me locally, a good thing? More choices?
Now, maybe your point is really that Amazon's ability to ship me fresh fruits and vegetables is unreasonably harsh on the local green grocer. Which it might be. But I don't understand how Amazon (a retailer, not a food manufacturer) will corrupt the food at some point in the future?
Not forcing but strongly encouraging via price + marketing + lack of education + lobbying
"who are we to democratically decide that this option should be off the table for them?"
We are the national community. People eating too much BigMac cost too much to the community. That's why we (should) tax junk food.
The issue is their economic power might erase a bit of the charm of Paris and lower my quality of life.
That's why the political power counterbalances this.
Humans are not very good for long term thinking. Often, people needs immediate consequences of their action to judge them.
If Parisians will accept higher prices at local shops, then those shops will continue to exist. Amazon cannot "kill" them unless Parisians prefer Amazon.
So while I'm not really agreeing with the reasons quoted by the mayor, I could definitely see a severe tax on this kind of business, because I'm sick of getting almost flattened by scooters driving on sidewalks.
Should brick and mortar businesses also be taxed extra for the increased traffic safety and pollution caused by citizens traveling to their stores to buy products? If anything I would expect delivery services to reduce both these problems.
The thought of walking to multiple shops just to buy food is a nightmare scenario to me. Considering just milk, I probably go through roughly 2 gallons (eh, 9 L) per day. I probably go through twice that much in juice. There will be a couple loaves of bread, 2 or 3 kg of meat, a hand of bananas (don't bruise them!), several large tomatos, half a kg of chocolate...
That's one day. Judging by filled grocery carts, it's about 0.2 cubic meters of stuff, a.k.a. 200 L of stuff. I think that comes to about 200 kg, given that the density of metal and glass (containers) kind of compensates for air pockets.
I could make 10 trips. Ugh. I could enlist all the little children, marching them through whatever bad weather there may be and trying not to lose any along the way. While we walk, the ice cream melts and the glass bottles get dropped. Think how many little kids would be needed to transport 200 L weighing about 200 kg.
I don't see how this is viable. Are you living on dried food? Milk powder is just not the same, and I've never even seen real juice powder. Assuming juice powder even exists, I'm sure it won't be like not-from-concentrate orange juice with extra pulp.
I'm imagining a family trudging through the winter snow in Paris. Everybody has a huge aluminum-frame hiking pack, including kids who are barely old enough to walk. To avoid losing any kids along the way, they are roped together kind of like a chain gang. It still takes multiple trips.
I don't think i can fill a shopping cart with the groceries for one week for two people.
Then quantities you are taking about seems really huge to me, even for a family of five. May I ask where you are from ?
We easily finish two whole chickens in one meal. We can almost manage to finish a 10 kg turkey.
Even for a little family of five, shopping without a car seems like it would be terribly difficult.
The kind of large families like you have are very rare in paris, for multiple reasons : -it's easier to afford more space/a house outside of Paris. The people that can afford large housing in Paris definitely can afford alternative solutions. -Having a large family and having to care for it by yourself means you rather have a car (e.g. to drive children to school, activities, vacations, etc). Having a car in Paris is not a good idea. -Cities outside paris are usually more friendly to families : it's easier for schools to take the kids in woods for sports activities or hikes, sports facilities are more accessible, etc. -Also, more families outside of Paris means that your children will grow in a neighbourhood with families. There's little for children to do outside of home/school in Paris.
Btw, your grocery list feels like your family is around 15-20 people. Families are considered large from 2 adults/4 children here. While it was common before the boomers' generation, families with more than 6 children are almost non-existent now. Also housing 15-20 people decently in Paris probably means you could hire people to take care of groceries...
(also lasting snow is maybe once-a-year in Paris these days, and it's usually chaos these days)
Outside of Paris is supposedly not very French anymore, and not very safe. It doesn't seem like a place you'd willingly live with kids. Maybe you mean really far away, far beyond the suburbs.
Your culture goes extinct if you don't make more.
I have 12 people, including one who is 198 cm tall and still growing. Standards for "decently" vary; large families normally cram people into a normal-sized house (140 to 280 m²) almost like the pre-boomer generations did.
I do not know where you get your information but you may have to change your sources. It seems very "FoxNewsy"
I wouldn't do any better by following news that refuses to cover anything that doesn't mesh well with the liberal agenda.
Those riots in the Paris suburbs... did you not hear about them, or do you think they were faked, maybe like the Moon landings? What about the sunbathing lady in the park? What about the people who claim to have been harassed and worse by neighborhood sharia patrols while doing things like carrying alcoholic drinks? None of this is safe, and it sure doesn't sound very French to me.