Group sales + 6.5% on constant exchange rates, + 5.2% on current exchange rates.
France: total sales up 1.6% (3.4% ex petrol) despite deflationary context
- In the current deflationary environment for food in France, we have reinforced our commitment to offer the best prices to all our customers. This has resulted in food deflation in our hypermarkets of 1.9% this quarter in dry grocery products.
- Within this context, like for like sales ex-petrol in hypermarkets were up 0.9%, and 2.2% in supermarkets.
- In our hypermarkets, like for like sales in non-food stabilised (+0.4%), and customer traffic was up in the quarter.

Rebound in Spain, sales improvement in Belgium and Italy
- In Spain, effective promotions helped reverse negative trends recorded in Q4 2006. Like for likes were up 4.8%, with strong growth in all formats.
- We continued to make progress strengthening the commercial offer in our Belgian and Italian hypermarkets.

Growth markets*: like for likes of 5%
- Six countries recorded like for like growth in excess of 5% - Argentina, Colombia, China, Romania, Poland and Greece.
- Taiwan like for likes showed signs of improvement.

We are opening more new m² in growth markets
- In Q1, we opened 203,000m², of which 65% outside our four big markets in Europe.
- New m² contributed 4.9% to sales growth in the quarter, of which 1.7% was from tactical acquisitions.

* ex France, Spain, Belgium and Italy