That's a sensitive issue in France as well.
Small businesses and "artisanal" shops were protected and multinational chains spreading restricted inside cities.
With the result that there are still fewer and fewer traditional shops and more and more cheap, arab or chinese run shops. (not that anyone has anything against them, just that people's run for cheaper and cheaper stuff will just not be suppressed)

Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)