Editor's note:This article, slightly longer than most of GL's local reporting, can be used to improve your English or your French by reading the original with this text. GL will publish one regional news article like this each week.
24 heures, Raphael Ebinger, Fre - Etoy residents are circulating a petition to save their "Laitérie," one of two small grocery shops in the village. Etoy thus joins the ranks of small towns along La Côte, the lakefront stretch of the Lake Geneva region, where family grocers are closing their doors. For once the reason is not competition from new, nearby supermarkets, but rather the closing of the local milk producers association which wants to sell the building.
The closing has, however, highlighted the plight of several stores in the area, of concern to local residents. The elderly and people without cars cannot, in some cases, easily reach large shopping malls. Village officials in Etoy and elsewhere worry that the village way of life will disappear.
The laiterie is close to the Littoral commercial area of Etoy, which has grown rapidly in recent months, and where a Migros and Interio are scheduled to open soon. Two nearby villages, Buchillon and Allaman, have grocers who have clearly suffered the impact of the Littoral Centre, with one closing down last week and the other expected to close within months. (continue reading)→