The stragglers of the Christmas shopping done "warm up" their blue card. The evidence: last Saturday, a day before the traditional new year's eve, more than 51 million banking transactions were carried out in just 24 hours, according to information from the GIE bank cards. This represents more than 35,000 payments per minute and about 600 per second. An absolute record. In comparison, it is about a million more than on Black friday, previous record. Also, the highest figure for the year 2017 amounted to 46 million of transactions via bank cards, we learn. Then, it was the 23 December.

" READ - In-store, the French pay less in cash than most European

Yet, for the past few weeks, Saturday was not the most important day in terms of sales, the movement of the "yellow vests" forces. This is only from the last week that the Saturday is gone by the Friday in terms of sales. Many French seem to have waited, sometimes in spite of them, the last time to catch up. However, is this enough to make up for the delay by some merchants? "This is what we can wish them," insisted the EIG, quoted by Le Parisien/Aujourd'hui En France . Last Saturday, precisely, the secretary of State for economic, Agnès Pannier-Runacher indicated that the trade sector recorded an average decline of 25% year on year due to the protests of the "yellow vests" ensuring that "thousands of jobs are at stake". "It is rather an average of less than 25%, but with very large gaps," said Agnès Pannier-Runacher on BFM-TV during a debate on the impact of the movement of the "yellow vests" on the trade

Christmas Shopping: the last "sprint"