That looks lovely and I reckon it’s one of the various loaves our Boulanger sells… but he also sells an enormous, almost two loaves twisted/grafted together.
It’s almost as big as the elderly farmer who buys it each week 
I freeze UK bread (including “proper” multigrain loaves that don’t contain preservatives; but haven;t tried freezing proper french bread, which does have a very short shelf life anyway so may not take well to freezing.
And who can blame them! A labour of love if there ever was one.
The boulangerie in a village near us has closed and re-opened with new owners a few times. It’s closed again now. There’s just not the business to support it, it really must seem like hard work for not a lot of money. However, the boulangerie in another village nearby is bucking the trend - but they are also a small grocery shop, selling a small range of basics. They have also opened a depot du pain in the village where the boulangire has closed! Vultures? Opportunists? Or simply business savvie? You decide but it addresses a need and the locals are happy!
I think convenience of just buying in a supermarche has something to do with it. Where I live in Cholet, I am blessed with having an Aldi and a Lidl right around the corner and a Feuillette across the street from them. The bread from the bakery is so much better, but most times I just buy it in one of the stores if I am there already because the queue in the bakery can be so long. I just don’t feel like waiting.
Cut it lengthwise then across into bits which will fit in your toaster, then freeze it, jumbling the bits up so they won’t stick to each other. When you want some just stick it, frozen, in the toaster et volià.
French people are eating less bread but getting fatter, like everywhere else, there’s a nice symmetrical graph I saw showing that the decline in bread-eating almost exactly mirrors the weight-gain curve.
My local supermarkets sell local bakers’ bread (as well as industrial bread), if I buy bread in the supermarket that’s what I go for.
but that can only give me very thin slices 
… I like decent chunks of baguette like one is given in local restaurants 
No no no it gives you a section of baguette halved lengthwise, is that too thin? It’s pretty traditional, and how I had my tartines for breakfast as a child, no toaster then though, it was toasted in a sort of cage. So funny comparing breakfast in the two countries between which I was always going back and forth, there really was no similarity.
I think I must (gently) interrogate my neighbours
Are you sure you’re buying ‘proper’ french bread?
We successfully freeze various breads every week, but we never buy from a supermarket or dépôt de pain.
Apropos disappearing boulangeries, around here there are many small artisanal boulangers, who don’t have a shop and instead just sell on local markets. There used to be one whose oven was in a partially ruined roadside barn, with the front completely open to the elements. His loaves were very distinctive too, dark tops with an X shaped slash and a faint scent of woodwmoke.
Not in the UK I’m not. 
The secret to freezing bread is to freeze it when it has just finished cooling down. Cut it into the size pieces that you use and put it in a freezer bag. I like to suck out the air of the bag before freezing. Then don’t keep it for longer than 2 weeks.
Exactly what we do with all types of bread bought from our boulangerie. It freezes very well for us, but as you say it won’t last too long. The white french bread we get in the supermarkets here is not that good but there is nice pain au noix in L’eclerc.
Baguette is hard to use out of the freezer. You get one chance to bake it for a short while then if you don’t eat it immediately it turns to rock.
I have frozen all types of bread and used it as needed and some of it (like real sourdoughs) can even be better than fresh. Mik’s tip about freezing it already cut into slices or chunks you will defrost and use pretty much straight away is a good one for some breads though.
When I took a stroll around the back streets of my big village/small town in Deux-Sevres, I noticed the old boulangerie, boucher and charcuterie signs on old dusty shops that reminded me of French film set from the 1950’s and 60’s.
I can bake bread but I decided that I would buy my bread from one of the remaining boulangers in the hope of playing a tiny part in keeping them in business.
A baguette will last me two maybe three days so my impact is more about the principle I guess.
When I’m there, my Saturday morning routine starts with buying a croissant and a pain au chocolat ( as well as my bread) from the boulangerie and having them with a couple of cafés allongés at the nearby café thus supporting two local businesses.
There are a couple of empty commercial premises right in the centre of village/town, which serve as a worrying reminder about the feasibility of running a business in such a location.
A review of Google Street View images taken over the years shows that various businesses have existed in some of these premises over the years - hairdressers, craft shop, florist, even a solar panel shop - but all have gone. So it’s not for the want of ideas, enthusiasm or effort that these premises remain empty and unused.
No, it’s not. People worked damned hard to make a go of things. The tabac in a nearby village has opened and closed several times over the years. Each opening with enthusiasm, honest smiles and genuine intentions. The mairie has tried several initiatives but there just isn’t the market (literally now, the weekly market became fortnightly, stalls and shoppers dwindled, it eventually ceased)
The commune/dept/region funded the building of a sorting office (postal) and that brigthened prospects for a vew years, and the tabac stayed in business for a bit longer than usual, even serving lunches. Then La Poste (or whoever) ‘restructured ‘ and closed the tri (having said thank you for the funding? I don’t know) Result = no business as usual in the village. Except the chemist, they seem to do alright.
It’s a sad rural story I’m sure many are familar with, and I see larger towns suffering similarly. Nope, despite the ideas and enthusiasm, in whatever endeavour, the bottom line seems to be the same - there is simply not the money circulating to keep a business going.