Pharmacie Monge Notre Dame — Attraction in Paris

Racist Staff!

Last month, I visited Paris for my annual Christmas trip. I went with a good friend of mine who I had taken to the Pharmacie Monge in 2017. Our experience was nothing short of racist!

Most of the staff there are asian (Chinese, Korean etc). As my friend and I browsed and they heard us speaking English, a lady pointed us in the direction of an incredibly stylish older caucasian lady with a chic bob hairstyle with a fringe and very stylish glasses who spoke English. I told her that I was looking for a particular product brand called Algologie and showed her a picture of it on my phone - I'd bought it there before. She explained that they were out of stock and tried to sell me an alternative from another brand. I wasn't interested but bought an Algologie moisturiser instead that she recommended which is lovely.

However, after that - our treatment there was appalling. They had (and very obviously too) profiled my friend and I as thieves or worse, and wanted us to leave ASAP. As we continued to browse and pick up other items and gifts, another much older asian lady and her colleague proceeded to follow my friend and I (at intimidatingly close proximity) for the rest of our time in the pharmacy - and we had a lot to buy.

When we finally made our way to the part of the store where the toiletries (tooth brushes, shampoo etc) are and where you pay. The queue was very long, we just waited in line. However, because they wanted us out so quickly, as my friend and I were at the end of the queue chatting, another caucasian French lady came to us and asked in English if the items we had were all we were waiting to pay for, we said yes - she then hurried us (just us) back to the other end of the store where the beauty products were, where they then opened a check out for us to hurry our transactions through. We were then effectively, efficiently and promptly ejected from the shop.

One might argue that it was a good thing that we didn't have to wait in that long queue - which is true. But this is about intent. My friend and I were very obviously treated badly because of the colour of our skin. Either conscious or unconscious bias, racial profiling or just racism - it was unfair to treat us in that way and I found it very upsetting.

We are human beings. Just a couple of English girls in Paris for the day to do our Christmas shopping. We did not deserve that, and they had no right to treat us that way.

I've been visiting this pharmacy since 2016 and have never had that there before. I'd suggest that, if you are a person who is not asian or caucasian be prepared for some horrific treatment in this otherwise chic...

Oh my goodness, this place is insane! Heard about this place from fellow Yelpers and made sure to have it as a stop during my visit in Paris. When I got there... there was a tourist bus parked outside and super packed inside! It was a tourist stop and filled with a lot of Asians with huge carts filled completely with products!

I have to say, I stopped by several Pharmacies in my area before hitting this one up, and this place was so overwhelming! There was so many products from so many different brands, I didn't know what half the things I was looking at was! They have these little sheets posted with French, Korean and Chinese about the products and what they do. Unfortunately, nothing in English. There are a lot of pharmacists all over the place and some of them are very helpful, while others would rather spend their time talking to each other. There are several that speak a lot of different languages, I think I heard Korean and Japanese, and most of them speak a little bit of English.

They have rotating deals so make sure you check out a couple of other pharmacies so you know if you're getting a good deal. This pharmacy had the most good deals, so if you only have time to go to one Pharmacy, I would suggest this one. Probably a good idea to go right when they open, because midday, with the tour buses parked outside, there is really no room to stroll around the place. I was always bumping into people and you can't stand in one place without people trying to squeeze by.

Got some bioderma 2 pack 500 ml each for a little over 15 euros, they have some great gift sets too from bioderma, nuxe and caudalie. I got a pretty decent gift set with la roche posay sunscreen 50 spf 50 ml and it came with an aerosol thermal spring water spray 50 g for 8 euros. Lot of other great things here, the selection is pretty spectacular.

TL;DR: if you only have time to visit one pharmacy, this is the one to visit. Make sure you go early and avoid all the tourists/tourist buses. There's a metro stop leading right to the front of the store, so easy transit if you buy a lot. Great deals! You could easily end up being here for hours if you don't go in knowing exactly...

Strongly suggest to go other pharmacies, lot options in Paris. Really bad experience here, when you wanna buy brand A, sales gonna recommend brand B, mentioning brand A is not good or they don’t have it in their shop, they suggest u r more suit for brand B(which is more expensive), and they’re rush to close, so u didn’t have enough time to check brand B When u wanna buy 1pcs, they’ll suggest u buy more to get discount, which actually no promotion price on the receipt, also too late to check the receipt if they’re rush to close, so I paid more than eur300 and they urgent me to get out the shop as they about to shut the door.. When u found out the tricky thing and wanna get return&refund the next day(taxi for the round trip over eur50), sales A said yes as she was on vacation these days so she wasn’t aware of this promotion price:), but sales B said noooo, in a very firm tone!! No negotiation possibility (they know I had a flight that day, so maybe I would give up and rush to the airport..) this kind of attitude left me choice but to call a police, thanks to the kindly helped police guys, finally I get partially refund(as they told me some items are non-refundable, I didn’t wanna waste more time, so I accepted, finally I paid approx eur120), but at last they blamed me to call the police, but if I didn’t do this, no one’s gonna talk to me!! And the most shocking thing, the big boss at last showed up during the refund procedure, saying: why u called a police, no one forced to buy these..(the highest management even had not a word for their overselling activity or after sale attitude..the very first time I’ve been experienced from a management level!! I gave a ‘smile’ to him and didn’t say a single word!! Do wish u good luck in...