McDonald's targets French villages with plans for 50 new outlets
Speaking
to Le Figaro
, the chain's French marketing and operations director, said that the next phase of expansion in France would be targeting smaller towns and villages, with the aim of opening 50 new outlets in France in 2025.
"The aim is to become part of the landscape, making McDonald's the new
bistro du coin
[local restaurant]."
He
added that the goal
was "for everyone in France to have a McDonald's within 20 minutes" of their home.
The US fast food chain is already a huge presence in France, with 1,560 restaurants - streets ahead of its nearest US rival KFC which has just 400 in France. France has the second biggest appetite for McDo, per head of the population, after the USA.
Advertisement
Next week two new restaurants will open - one in La Châtaigneraie, a commune of 2,500 inhabitants in Vendée, western France, and one in Saint-Geniès-de-Malgoirès (3,000 inhabitants) in Gard, southern France.
They represent the company's new strategy, which is to target small towns and villages for new outlets, after completing the takeover of virtually all France's cities and larger towns.
The strategy has not won favour with everyone - Alain Fontaine, president of the Bistrots et cafés de France group, told BFM TV: "Tourists will now arrive in French villages that local authorities have fought to renovate, and 30m from a 14th-century fountain or magnificent arcades, there will be a McDonald's?"
He bemoaned the loss of the French
art de vivre
and gastronomy, but also to the health risks of junk food, particularly with the rise in obesity.
The problem of a lack of facilities - especially social spaces - in small towns and villages is one that has existed for some time, and has been the reasons for several new laws, aimed at reviving small communities.
"We need to give local mayors more tools to revitalise communities," added Fontaine, "As Guillaume Kasbarian did with his
law on alcohol licences for village cafés
.
"Local authorities must be authorised and financially assisted to help business, and pre-empt the situation of the 'last business' in a community.
"Tomorrow's bistros and cafés must resist the Americanisation of our consumption."
Advertisement
Although most medium-sized French towns have a McDonald's, they are often relegated to the out-of-town industrial estates that contain the unlovely by necessary businesses including supermarkets and DIY stores.
Since the first restaurant opened in 1979 in Strasbourg there have been periodic protests against the presence of the US fast-food giant, but appetite for its products has grown steadily.
Today the business employs more than 75,000 people in France.
READ ALSO
40 years of France's love-hate relationship with McDonald's
What do you think of McDonald's expansion plans in France? Vital facility for small communities or trashing of France's restaurant culture? Please share your views in the comments section below
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
LeMonde
8 hours ago
- LeMonde
Personalized AI chatbots go off the rails on Instagram and Messenger
Meta is usually known for making big announcements. This time, however, Mark Zuckerberg's company was surprisingly subdued when it rolled out AI Studio in France: Since the end of July, French Instagram and Messenger app users have been able to create personalized chatbots or chat with ones made by other users. Users can now talk to an artificial intelligence (AI) version of a psychologist, a cooking expert, a version of Batgirl, a parody of Vladimir Putin or even a "virtual girlfriend." All of these bots are created by the platforms' users, based on Llama, Meta's large language model. It only takes a few seconds to set up a chatbot by describing its purpose and personality, with the option to add further instructions if needed. The user can then decide whether to make their chatbot publicly accessible or restrict it to their friends only. However, Meta has warned that "we review AIs you create" before they are published, to ensure they do not violate the platform's rules. Yet the review process is rather superficial. Naruto, Harry Potter, the French YouTuber Squeezie, God, Marilyn Monroe, Breaking Bad 's Walter White and even France's prime minister, François Bayrou: Le Monde quickly found many chatbots that impersonate real people, fictional characters covered by copyright protections, and religious figures – including several Jesus Christ bots – all of which are forbidden by Meta. While some of these bots appeared not to have interacted with any users, others have already exchanged millions of messages. Furthermore, despite rules prohibiting the chatbots from posing as financial advisers, dozens of AI bots dedicated to cryptocurrency, personal finance or investment could be found easily. The few profiles tested by Le Monde only repeated general statements. However, in just a few moments, we were able to create a bot specialized in financial advice that encouraged beginners to invest online via the fraudulent trading website RiveGarde, which a previous Le Monde investigation found was connected to an organized crime network. It was then possible to share the chatbot with friends after it went through Meta's automatic verification process, which took less than a minute.
Local France
18 hours ago
- Local France
French wine industry warns of ‘brutal' impact from US tariffs
Brussels and Washington struck a trade deal at the weekend which will see most EU exports including France's cherished wines and spirits face a 15 percent US levy. 'The impact of this duty will be all the more brutal as it goes hand in hand with the decline of the US dollar in the United States,' Gabriel Picard, president of the French wine and spirits exporters' federation FEVS, said in a statement. He estimated that the combined effect 'could lead to a 25 percent reduction' in wine and spirits sales in the United States, representing a loss of €1billion. A drop in exports would also affect 600,000 jobs in the wine and spirits industry in France, the statement said. 'Negotiations must continue,' Picard said. 'The situation cannot remain as it is.' Jean-Marie Fabre, president of the union of independent winegrowers of France, urged France to continue negotiations. 'We hope to be granted an exemption,' he told broadcaster RMC. Advertisement The tariffs could reduce consumption of French champagne in the United States, warned Maxime Toubart, the co-president of the Interprofessional Champagne Wines Committee (CIVC). This would impact employment both in the United States and in France, he added. The EU said Thursday it expected its wine sector to be hit along with most European products, but negotiations were ongoing to secure a carve-out. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Thursday that France wanted to obtain 'guarantees' for its wines and spirits.
LeMonde
a day ago
- LeMonde
Trump gambles with reindustrializing the US
Attracting foreign investment to reindustrialize the US has been the main objective of Donald Trump's tariff policy. "Remember the army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little screws to make iPhones? That kind of thing is going to come to America," promised US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on April 6, just days after Trump announced so-called "reciprocal" tariffs on April 2. The agreement unveiled on Sunday, July 27, with the European Union includes an additional $600 billion in investments to be made in the US. A few days earlier, Japan committed to invest $550 billion in the US as part of its agreement signed with Washington. These commitments, however, remain vague – both in terms of the time frame and the sectors involved. In recent weeks, several major European groups have announced plans to build factories in the US, raising concerns over reduced activities in Europe and even an increase in offshoring to the US. On July 24, Bernard Arnault, the founder and CEO of the luxury group LVMH, announced that Louis Vuitton would open a fourth manufacturing site across the Atlantic. "For our American customers, buying a Louis Vuitton product 'made in USA' poses (…) no problem at all," Arnault argued in the French newspaper Le Figaro on July 24.
