June 30 (Bloomberg) -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Michelle Obama’s Sunday shopping stop during a visit to Paris this month underscored his demand for looser rules that limit stores’ opening hours.

“Is it normal that when Mrs. Obama and her daughters, on a Sunday, want to go shopping in Paris stores, I have to make a call to get the shops to open?” Sarkozy said today in a speech in the Paris suburb of La Defense. “All the Obama supporters were there. Who is going to explain to them why France is the only country where shops are closed on Sundays?”

A few days before President Barack Obama and his family traveled to Paris on the first weekend of June, the U.S. Embassy called Bonpoint, a children’s clothing chain, asking for a store to be opened for the First Lady’s June 7 visit, Bonpoint’s head of communication Benedicte Perrot told Bloomberg today. Michelle Obama and her daughters stayed for an hour, said Perrot, who declined to say what they bought.

French labor laws limit retailers’ right to open on Sundays to five days a year unless the venue has “recreational” or “cultural” value. Current rules limit job creation at retailers because they miss out on tourists and encourage households living near French borders to spend abroad on Sundays, according to Sarkozy.

The French government will present a bill to loosen Sunday labor rules in coming weeks, he said. More areas must be given the tourist label to be able to open on Sundays, he said.

Earlier this year, lawmakers of the Socialist-led opposition and part of Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement party opposed a loosening of the Sunday store opening rules, derailing a draft bill that would have allowed some retailers and department stores to remain open seven days a week.

“I’m in favor of the Sunday store opening,” Bonpoint’s Perrot said. “Is there a better way to boost consumption? On Saturdays, stores are too crowded.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Francois de Beaupuy in Paris at fdebeaupuy@bloomberg.net; Helene Fouquet in Paris at Hfouquet1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 30, 2009 09:15 EDT