E. Leclerc, Saintes

Eleven minutes in Saintes, part 4 (Go to part 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

Having taken my photos (see parts 2 and 3), I continued a bit further on the bridge just in case there could be another sign, and indeed, I saw two more in the street that runs parallel to the railway tracks and passes under the bridge. I turned back to go and photograph them but then noticed that two recently painted (or repainted) gables next to the bridge had been used previously as advertising spaces. Obviously these are trickier to read, even after a bit of tweaking in Photoshop.


The most 'visible' sign here is for supermarket chain E. Leclerc and includes above the name its logo. Edouard Leclerc opened his first supermarket in Brittany in 1949. Since then E. Leclerc has been experiencing a steady expansion and is now the leading chain in France with around 560 stores and 16.4% of the market in 2008. Until the second half of the 1980s E. Leclerc had a small supermarket on the Avenue Jourdan, less than a kilometre east from here, and people coming from the centre of the city would have been reminded of its presence. This particular store was forced to close when E. Leclerc opened a new hypermarket on the other side of the city.
Under 'E. Leclerc' are two, apparently unconnected lines, written with different fonts:
... ... Ber...
Vous remercie de votre visite [Thank You for Your Visit]On the left side of the wall was another painted sign but I can't distinguish enough of it to identify it.

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Location: Avenue Aristide Briand, Saintes, Charente-Maritime / Picture taken on: 06/06/2010