Flea markets.

I don’t know why we use this name to refer to a market selling a mess of old things, probably because they are infested by fleas! Now in France we prefer to say “brocante” (second-hand market) and flea market is used more for a permanent market, such as the one you can find in the north of Paris near the “porte de Clignancourt”.
These “brocantes” take place at weekends often outside, in villages, towns and are in fashion in France. It is a way to attract people to places where there are usually not many inhabitants. Sometimes it is the great annual event of the village! In our Department (Cher), we have at least about a hundred brocantes a year…
The biggest “brocante” is the one in Lille in the north of France with thousands of dealers and hundreds of thousands of people interested in this market. Maybe English people know this event better than I do because it is just on the other side of the channel and the Pound is overvalued against the Euro!
You used to be able to find a lot of second-hand objects on these markets, called “objets dans leur jus” (objects in their juice) that means without restoration (furniture, tools, crockery, cameras, clothes….) and you could do good business.
Today, it is a bit different because you find dealers selling restored things that look like objects which are usually sold at an antique dealer’s. And you also find what we call “vide-grenier” (empty-attic?). In this case the objects are sold directly by inhabitants who sell everything at a very low price but sometimes I wonder who are interested in these items! Dealers are often children who sell their toys, their books, their bikes…and know how to bargain!
Alas, now we rarely get good bargains because there are less and less interesting things to be sold and so prices are increasing…
The negative side of these “brocantes” is that it is a way for dishonest dealers to sell stolen goods. In France we have many examples!

Claude.