Some Americans are boycotting France and French products. PLEASE, I do not want a debate about whether this is a good idea or a bad idea; or whether the boycott is justified or not; or whether France’s positions on Bush, the Iraq war, etc. are the right positions. In fact, I really don’t want to debate anything at all.
What I want to know is: is the French economy suffering at all due to the boycott?
ISTR reading somewhere that the French are drowning in their wine that nobody wants to buy, but the article stated that this is a result of overproduction and competition from other wine-producing regions (California, Australia, South Africa, etc.). Is this true, and could the boycott have something to do with it?
Is tourism down?
Furthermore, I don’t see how a few million Americans boycotting French products could really affect France at all. I looked up a list of French products sold in the US, and it turns out that I’ve been participating in a de facto boycott of France my entire life, since there’s nothing that comes out of France that interests me in the slightest (I’m not into wine, fancy cheese, truffles or cosmetics).
Can anyone FACTUALLY answer this question? Bottom line: how is the French economy doing of late, compared to pre-Iraq war?
Also the US doesn’t really go hog wild on agrifood. The French exported $307 billion worth of goods in 2002 (Wordbook) and of those the US made up a mere 8.7% ($26 Billion)
A recent CBC documentary (viewable online) on the politicization of the American news media included a claim by a conservative talk-show host (O’Reilly, I think) that the French economy had been devastated by the American boycott. The documentary said that they found no evidence of the journal that he cited for this claim (the ‘Paris Business Review’, or something like that), and also that there was no evidence that the French economy was affected by any American boycott. (I’m not sure if they used the overall size of the French economy or the value of US-French trade, but they cited an increase of some sort since any boycott would have begun.)
By the way Homie, the assertions that you saw about the impact of Americans boycotting France may have come from an August 2004 essay in National Review Online called “Grapes of Wrath”. A link and rebuttal to that article is available here. (Neither the article nor the rebuttal could be called strictly “factual”: lots of these issues are matters of opinion and interpretation.)
Is there a cite to show that any sizable number of Americans are boycotting French products to begin with? I remember talk of this two years ago, but a two year active boycott would be an extremely rare event. And any time “millions” of Americans engage in an active boycott it would be a major news story.
Unless you can show that a boycott is taking place, how can any variance in France’s economy mean anything?
I’m going on the assumption that O’Reily has at least 5 million listeners, and that at least half of them are boycotting (as it was O’Reily who continues to push for the boycott). Big assumptions, maybe.
As Grey’s cite pointed out, most of France’s trade is in aeronautics. How many of Bill O’Reilly’s audience bought a plane last year? Darned few. He’s had no impact.
No Michelin tires? No Danon yogurt? No Roche pharmaceuticals? No Bic pens or razors? No Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce? No RCA electronics? The luxury goods you mention actually make up only a small part of exports from France to the US.
No, no, no, no, no, no & no. Add no L’Oreal products, either, FTR. But that’s not necessarily due to a boycott; it’s just that those aren’t products I’d buy anyway.
This is really nit picky, but Britain’s products are so few and far between that I can not let this pass without designating Worcestershire Sauce as British.
I actually had one of my sub-contractors turn down a job that I offered because my client was a French company. Other than that, I haven’t seen any real evidence of the boycott.
I just checked a few labels. One Bic lighter was made in France, but the new one’s package says “Made in Spain.” A package of Bic mechanical pencils was made in Mexico. I just picked up a Bic pen, and it says “Made in USA.” Are you sure about RCA? Most of the world’s electronics are now made in China. On the other hand, Renault now owns Nissan (according to yesterday’s BBC World news.) Boycotting France can be tricky; you could be avoiding the wrong products.
Renault bought 37% of Nissan in 1999 and has been in control ever since.
Thompson Electronics of France is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of televisions. It bought the RCA and GE brand names from GE many years ago.
Marcel Bich purchased a Hungarian patent and started making BIC pens in his French pen company in 1950. It’s now called Société BIC.
All three brands are now global conglomerates. Where things are made and where things are owned have virtually nothing to do with one another these days.
Just for the record, Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce is now owned by the French company Danone. Danone’s empire also includes Britain’s famed HP Sauce, Jacobs biscuits, and a quarter of Scottish and Newcastle breweries.
Want more? Vivendi owns Universal, whose music companies include Geffen Records, Interscope Geffen A&M, Island Def Jam Music Group, Lost Highway Records, MCA Nashville, Mercury Nashville, and Motown Records. And Universal Studios and all the movies they make and all their theme parks and games and other popular entertainment products.
Even with these sites, not one person in a hundred would know what to boycott if they wanted to boycott French products. As I said earlier, I don’t believe in the existence of any blanket boycott of French products.
Did any Americans whatsoever actually boycott any French products? The few people who even claimed that they would apparently had no idea which products were owned by French companies. Heck, they were the same people who wanted to rename French fries, which are actually Belgian.
Initially, there were pictures of liquor store owners pouring (probably their cheapest) French wines into the gutter. A certain bombastic talk show host claims millions of boycotters, but it probably didn’t amount to much. In this thread and another in IMHO, some posters still seem pretty steamed at the French. Apparently, they are careful to buy non-French goods.
I’m not a boycotter, but I buy mostly US wine, and I did before the war. I’m not rich enough to buy the finest French wine, and Californian everyday wine is at least as good as the vin ordinaire from over there.