Apostle Behind the Counter

"This man may transform the medieval French retail trade along 20th century lines." So said a high French government official last week of Edouard Leclerc, a young (32), socially minded and devout Frenchman who is sparking a revolution in French food-selling practices. Leclerc, who started out by studying to be a Roman Catholic priest, changed his mind, and decided that he could help the poor more by donning a grocer's apron and bringing down the cost of living. Nine years ago, with $40, he opened a stall behind his house in Landerneau, near Brest, offering staple groceries only 8% above cost. Today some 30 Leclerc-sponsored groceries are operating in Brittany, Normandy and central France, and the movement is spreading over the nation. Recently, a rumor that a Leclerc store was about to be opened in Tours dropped food prices 20%.

Friends at Court. France has long needed an apostle in the grocery business. With 300,000 food stores, enough to serve the U.S., with a population nearly four times as great, the French people are forced to pay among the highest food markups in the world. When Leclerc began offering 20% off on staple groceries, with up to 70% off on chocolates, razor blades and other specialties, his Landerneau competitors went to war to protect their entrenched position. They first spread false rumors that he was a tool of the church, French labor unions or the French employers' federation. As customers continued to crowd his store, increasing his sales from $26,000 to $700,000 a year, his competitors sent anonymous letters to authorities charging that he was cheating on taxes, underpaying his help. Revenue agents established that he owed no taxes, was paying high wages.

His enemies figured out other ways to attack him. Wholesalers who had previously helped him asked him to take his business elsewhere. Said one: "I like your business, M. Leclerc, but every time I sell you 1,000,000 francs worth of goods, I lose 30 million in canceled orders elsewhere." When things looked black, Leclerc's plight came to official attention in Paris. Economic Minister Antoine Pinay and other high officials saw in his crusade a way to raise French living standards without causing an inflationary wage increase, which they knew would only be soaked up in higher prices. The De Gaulle government used its emergency powers to pass a law making it a six-month jail offense for a wholesaler to discriminate against a retailer.

Oysters `a Leclerc. Last September authorities in Grenoble (pop. 140,000) invited Benefactor Leclerc to open a store there to force down food prices, among the highest in France. Within a month the Leclerc store was doing a monthly business of $60,000, improving the diet of Grenoble families with such unaccustomed luxuries as imported fresh oysters at 42-c- a dozen, against the usual price of $1.43. Promptly, competitors encircled Leclerc's store with six new cut-price outlets, dropped his volume to $24,000 a month. Said Leclerc: "I did not come here to make money but to bring down prices. Grenoble families are saving $160,000 a year through new lower prices." To any Frenchman wanting to open a Leclerc-style store, he will teach his selling methods free. His only requirement: they must agree to hold to his policy of low overhead, minimum profit.

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