Visit the McLouvre in Paris!

No big bonjour here!

This story really cracks me up.  I lived in Paris, France for two years and saw some pretty interesting stuff while I was there.  The French seem to love to consume America products but their elected officials always seem to condemn them.  The French “exception” is basically that their culture, if not superior, is right at the top so they reserve the right to try and keep their idea of France alive in the marketplace.

Now we have a McDonald’s opening up just next to the cultural treasure of France (and of the world):

Lovers of France’s two great symbols of cultural exception – its haute cuisine and fine art – are aghast at plans to open a McDonald’s restaurant and McCafé in the Louvre museum next month.

America’s fast food temple is celebrating its 30th anniversary in France with a coup -the opening of its 1,142nd Gallic outlet a few yards from the entrance to the country’s Mecca of high art and the world’s most visited museum.

“This is the last straw,” said one art historian working at the Louvre, who declined to be named. “This is the pinnacle of exhausting consumerism, deficient gastronomy and very unpleasant odours in the context of a museum,” he told the Daily Telegraph.

“I’m not against eating in a museum but McDonald’s is hardly the height of gastronomy,” he said, adding that it was a worrying mixture of art and consumerism. “Today McDonald’s, tomorrow low-cost clothes shops,” he said.

McDonald’s confirmed that a restaurant will open next month. The Louvre confirmed it will be positioned in the underground approach to the Louvre, known as the Carrousel du Louvre.

France has its own version of McDo (as they have named it) called “Quick.”  This is ironic on several points, mostly because “quick” isn’t a French word (I guess Rapidement didn’t sound right) and because it’s menu is pretty much a copy of that of McDonald’s.

McDo does pretty well in France (McDo’s largest market outside of America) but it’s tough to figure out how much of that business comes from French or from tourists.  I know I ate at McDo a few times while I was there (the Royale with Cheese being my choice).  Insert Pulp Fiction joke here.

The French have been feeling the onslaught of Anglo-Saxon “culture” for decades and when I was living there I remember a huge push by the Socialist government to require true French words only.  You get this type of thing in French Canada where they have often times odd words because they refuse to use anything English-related in their vocabulary and there cannot be English-only signs (they must also have French on them).

Le Big Mac?

The article continues:

“Starbucks was bad enough but McDonald’s is worse,” said the Louvre art historian.

A new ticket hall is due to be built in the next three years by the site of the new McDonald’s to cope with the eight million annual visitors.

“Once this happens, the first thing visitors will likely see when they arrive are big golden arches,” he said.

Many in France view “McDo” as the Trojan horse of globalisation and the scourge of local produce and long lunches.

José Bové, the mustachioed anti-GM crusader shot to fame after bulldozing a McDonald’s in 1999 to protest against malbouffe (junk food).

However, even if there were a last-minute u-turn at the Louvre, statistics suggest the battle of Le Big Macs has already been lost. France has become McDonald’s biggest market in the world outside of the US, according to the chain. While business in traditional brasseries and bistros is in freefall, the fast food group opened 30 new outlets last year in France and welcomed 450 million customers – up 11 per cent on the previous year.

The way of life in France has many pleasant aspects to it for sure, but cultural “leaders” there are on the retreat.  French is supposed to be an official language of the UN (next to English) however nobody really bothers with that when people from different countries get together and American films do very well in France.

It is a shame French culture is getting squeezed out but, then again, the Tucker was a pretty good car, too and it failed in the end.

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