The free market doesn't fail in this case. Consumers fail. Just like when there is traffic on a highway, it isn't networking theory that fails, it is drivers.
Consumers choose to shop at Carrefour, and fill their coffers with money to smash smaller chains. Maybe if consumers were smarter, or cared a little bit more, they wouldn't shop there? I can only blame ignorant consumers and not carrefour or the free market in general.
Even if 10% of consumers thought that Carrefour was onerous and damaging to their society, and were willing to pay slightly higher prices - they would provide enough demand for other smaller shops to open.
But they don't, because people don't want to bother spending 50 cents more on gas, and paying 5€ more on their 70€ purchase.
I suspect you're getting downvoted because your suggestion suffers from the free-rider problem: everyone who chooses to continue shopping at Carrefour free rides off those who don't, yet they still obtain any supposed social benefits.
How? How is someone who buys at Carrefour free riding off of those who don't? Carrefour has very efficient supply chains set up, and can therefore provide cheap goods. I don't pay more for a tomato from my neighborhood farm because Carrefour imports tomatoes from Algeria
You're suggesting these people are paying more because Carrefour was "onerous and damaging to their society". In other words, they're treating competition to Carrefour as a social good. Society is better off if enough people shop at competing stores, but no individual customer has an incentive to shop at competing stores.
Consumers choose to shop at Carrefour, and fill their coffers with money to smash smaller chains. Maybe if consumers were smarter, or cared a little bit more, they wouldn't shop there? I can only blame ignorant consumers and not carrefour or the free market in general.
Even if 10% of consumers thought that Carrefour was onerous and damaging to their society, and were willing to pay slightly higher prices - they would provide enough demand for other smaller shops to open.
But they don't, because people don't want to bother spending 50 cents more on gas, and paying 5€ more on their 70€ purchase.