The hard discount chains development in France : an irresistible rise ?

German food discount stores have changed the European retail landscape in the 1990s as the French hypermarkets did in the 1970s and 1980s. But a very limited literature does exist on that topic because of the lack of available sources. This paper tries to tell the story of this retail format in Europe and focuses on the French situation where the war between German hard discounters and French hypermarkets seem to be critical for the future of both German and French retail industry. Three theories are mobilized to explain this evolution: the wheel of retailing, the retail life cycle and the population ecology. The French retail situation is described through all the strategies implemented by local retailers to resist to the hard discount invasion. Some issues are proposed related to French retailer reactions facing this invasion which should not be the last one