Story By: Ernest Bio Bogore, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Newsflash
A French mother says security guards stopped her entering a supermarket because she had her six-year-old son with her after falsely claiming the law forbid it.
The incident took place yesterday (25th March) in Argentan in the north-western French department of Orne when a woman, 36, who has not been named, says she was refused access to the local Leclerc supermarket.
Reports say she was accompanied by her six-year-old son who she could not arrange childcare for and she says she was standing in the queue when “the first security guard came up to me to tell me that my child could not enter because of the new decree issued by Emmanuel Macron.
“At the entrance, a second guard gave me the same speech: I asked them to show me this decree but instead they showed me an internal note from their security company.”
Reports say that the shop’s management have asked the security guards to “ensure that customers are not with their children”.
Offended by the refusal, the mother decided to return to her vehicle.
She said: “I called the store right away to get an explanation. On the phone, the manager told me that I can’t go in and that’s the way it is.
“He told me that this decision was made to avoid further stress for the cashiers.”
She says she did not understand the situation, especially since the previous weekend she had gone to the same shop without encountering any difficulties.
She said: “I had taken every precaution in putting my son in the trolley to prevent him from wandering around. The certificates and our ID cards were in my pocket, everything was in order.”
Contacted about the incident, the store’s CEO Franck Andreu said: “To date, there is no such ban in our store. We advise our customers to come alone and we limit the number of people present inside at the same time as much as possible, in order to comply with the regulations in force and to avoid the spread of the virus.
“We are doing everything we can to ensure that the situation runs smoothly. If the refusal may have offended the woman, I apologise.”
The prefecture of Orne states: “In the texts, nothing indicates that it is forbidden to go shopping with your child.
“The common sense is to have the child kept if the parents have the possibility. Social distancing is the basic principle applied, but there is no formal prohibition.”
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