Through my column I try to keep you up to date with the legal developments affecting the status of French wholesale markets. And what has happened recently is almost certainly the last chapter in this long story: the bill reforming market management has passed into law and is going to change radically the relationship between market authorities and their tenants.

But first, let’s sum up the different decisions taken:

• Markets have been acknowledged as a local public service by law;

• Local communities are empowered to create and run markets;

• Regional councils are competent to decide if a wholesale market may or may not be classified as of national interest.

• Markets can be developed on private land and managed by private companies.

• The positive protection perimeter disappears and remains a perimeter in reference only.

These decisions might sound quite academic, but for the first time since their creation, markets are endowed with a public-service prerogative. That is to say that their role in the supply chain is actually confirmed by law.

Additionally, regional councils are gaining strength in this field: this a side effect of broader decentralisation legislation being introduced by the French government.

But the most important new legal provision is that private companies may now run markets. Until now, only local authorities - or the state in the case of Rungis - were able to do so because, in part, markets were built on public land. However, from now on, a private company may run a market in much the same way as Liverpool market is run in the UK.

It is of course unlikely that French wholesale markets will go private all of a sudden. But the door is now open. Some say that this new regulation will give tenants an opportunity to acquire rights to their premises, and any delay will be due to the time it will take to get used to the idea after some 30 years of management by the authorities.

This is true. And what’s more, the sector will not be used to what might turn out to be a more liberalised market management. The previous system has also afforded some degree of protection for those less well-equipped to face harsh competition. Having openly supported a deep-rooted reform of market status, the wholesale community might now see their numbers shrink in light of stark economic reality.

Pandora’s box? Maybe not, but more than ever caution is advisable to ride out this difficult, but so long-awaited change.