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When I have been in mainland Europe, in areas such as France or Belgium, a lot of the shops say they're open "7/7".

The latter 7 presumably means 'every day' like in 24/7, but what about the other 7?

Surely it's not uncommon to be open for 7 hours in a day?

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  • Complete guess -- either it means 7am to 7pm OR it means standard 9am to 5pm with an hour for lunch?
    – SpaceDog
    Commented Feb 17, 2015 at 10:21
  • I don't think it's the former - take this site for example upla.fr/en/christmas-coming-upla-open-77 , open 10:30am to 7pm. Maybe it's the latter, but it's still kinda confusing
    – Toshinou Kyouko
    Commented Feb 17, 2015 at 10:23
  • Hmmm, you're right, that doesn't make much sense. Hopefully someone will come along and explain what it means.
    – SpaceDog
    Commented Feb 17, 2015 at 10:26

1 Answer 1

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In my eyes 7/7 is shorthand for French 7 jours sur 7 which translates to 7 days out of 7. Meaning the business is open all week. Note that this does not necessarily mean that the business is also open 24h.

Indeed in France you often read 7j/7 written on shops that are open every day of the week (note the little j, standing for jours == days). For example, take this Parisian info website showing a list of 24h businesses, and look at the description of the 24h pharmacy:

Pharmacie ouverte 24h/24 et 7j/7 à Paris

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  • 6
    Exactly what I was going to say, except you even said it in French (-:
    – hippietrail
    Commented Feb 17, 2015 at 10:29
  • 8
    In Romania and I think also Bulgaria such shops use the term "nonstop", which is not exactly how we use it in English (-:
    – hippietrail
    Commented Feb 17, 2015 at 11:14
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    @MarkMayo You dare call it "a while" ... :)
    – yo'
    Commented Feb 17, 2015 at 14:03
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    As French, I can tell that this is totally accurate. Also as a math guy, I want to put the focus on the fact that 7/7 (read 7 over 7) is a division. And this division means it is open 100% of the days of the week. Also the '24/7' for a French (and a math) person is a bit disturbing. The first time I see '24/7' I instantly thought: 'How on earth can you be open 24 days a week !'
    – Orace
    Commented Feb 18, 2015 at 15:13
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    In at least some parts of France, 7j/7 can mean six days a week of "normal" opening hours and a really quite brief opening period on Sunday morning. France has quite strict (but regionally variable) Sunday trading laws, they're debating changes at the moment. I've not tested it in other parts of Europe but you should avoid making assumptions about how much of the day a shop will be open at the weekend.
    – Chris H - UK
    Commented Feb 18, 2015 at 15:20

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