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Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Times
First McDonald's took French cities — now it's the new village café
Home to barely 3,000 people, the village of Saint-Geniès-de-Malgoirès in the south of France has a fine 17th-century church and narrow picturesque streets lined with stone buildings. Since this spring, it can also boast its own branch of McDonald's. In the country that invented haute cuisine, it is part of a drive by the American fast-food giant, which already has 1,560 French branches, to expand beyond its traditional sites in cities and out-of-town commercial centres. Fifty new outlets are due to open this year and, for the first time, many are expected to be in small rural communities. 'McDonald's has become a bit like the village café,' says Jérôme Fourquet, director of the opinion and business strategy department of Ifop, a leading French pollster. For the leaders of such communities, the chain's arrival means much needed jobs. In Saint-Geniès-de-Malgoirès, it has become the biggest employer. 'They plan to hire 40 people,' Jean-François Durand-Coutelle, the mayor, told local media several months before the opening. 'As per my request, local people will be given priority, especially the young and those trying to supplement their pensions.' For many in the restaurant business, however, McDonald's foray into la France profonde is yet another blow to the country's proud culinary tradition. 'We are losing our soul. The local authorities should stop this,' fumed Alain Fontaine, president of the French Association of Master Restaurateurs. 'Tourists will arrive in a 13th or 14th-century village, see the renovated fountain and church and magnificent walls, and then right in the middle of the square there will be a McDonald's — the same McDonald's they can find in Coventry, Northampton, New York or Milan. What's that all about?' • Foodie breaks in France French eating habits have changed dramatically since the first 'McDo', as it is known by fans and foes, opened in the Paris suburb of Créteil in 1972 — two years before the chain established a bridgehead on the other side of the Channel in Woolwich. It has long since been joined by other well-known fast food brands such as KFC, Burger King and Pizza Hut. These days there are also countless other burger, chicken and kebab joints, as well as several chains selling 'French tacos', filled flour tortilla wraps that have little in common with their Mexican namesake. The French still spend more time at the table than anyone else in the world — 133 minutes per day, compared with 79 in Britain and just 62 in America — but they are more likely to be eating a cheeseburger and fries than a plate of magret de canard or beef bourguignon. For the first time in 2023, sales of fast food overtook that of traditional restaurant fare and now account for 55 per cent of the restaurant market. The young are its keenest consumers: 67 per cent of 18 to 34-year-olds say they eat fast food at least two or three times a month, according to a study on French eating habits published last month by the Fondation Jean-Jaurès, a think tank. Of dishes served in restaurants, 70 per cent contain chips. Alain Fontaine, 67, who also heads the Association of Bistros and Cafés, has witnessed the transformation of the French culinary landscape during his five decades in the restaurant business. His career actually began in Long Eaton, Derbyshire, to which he decamped as a football-obsessed 20-year-old who dreamt of playing for Brian Clough's wildly successful Nottingham Forest. Despite a few trials, he never made it into the team and found himself working at the Novotel. Haute cuisine it was not. 'This was the beginning of the era of the microwave,' he recalled. 'And the Irish chef spent most of the day in the bar.' For the past 23 years, Fontaine has run Le Mesturet (established 1883), near l'Opéra in Paris, which serves classics such as frogs' legs, foie gras de canard mi-cuit and blanquette de veau, all prepared and cooked on the premises. In the meantime, the surrounding streets have filled with Japanese restaurants: there are 765 of them across Paris, putting them in second place among foreign cuisines behind Italian restaurants, of which there are 1,876. The nearby Golf-Drouot, a celebrated venue where Johnny Hallyday and fellow legends of French music played in the 1960s and 1970s, is now a Five Guys. The latest challenge faced by French restaurateurs, Fontaine argues, is the growth of mid-market restaurant chains or groups that have long been common in Britain but have hitherto been a rarity in France. They are often founded not by restaurateurs but by entrepreneurs or financial groups, whose deep pockets mean they can afford the best sites and, thanks to their size, can drive down the price of the food they buy. 'We independent restaurants are in the same situation as grocers were 40 years ago when they were first faced with the supermarkets,' he said. 'Now we are the ones are going to disappear.' But Eloi Spinnler, 30, a prominent chef with 280,000 Instagram followers, wonders what the fuss is about. 'There have always been chains in France,' he said, citing old family favourites such as Léon de Bruxelles, Courtepaille and Buffalo Grill. 'The only thing that has changed is the new chains that have done well want people to eat well,' he added. 'Working well on social media is also very important.' Both aims apply to his own group, Bonaloi, which is due to open Envie, its third restaurant in Paris, in September. Back in Saint-Geniès-de-Malgoirès, the community seems delighted with their new McDonald's. Among the handful eating there on Friday was Noemi Diaz, who had driven for a few minutes from nearby Moussac for a late lunch with her husband and three-year-old son, who had disappeared to the restaurant's play area. 'The prices are good and my son loves the games,' she said. Despite Fontaine's concerns, the outlet lies not in the village's picturesque heart, but instead next to a petrol station in a commercial centre on its outskirts. This is deliberate, according to Yannick Augrandenis, a company spokesman: customers expect copious parking, while proximity to the road network means they can attract diners from the surrounding area. In the past, McDonald's was targeted by those opposed to globalisation — most notably by José Bové, a sheep farmer who became known around the world after he and a group of friends attacked one of its branches in Millau, 75 miles to the west, in 1999 in protest at a 100 per cent tariff slapped by America on roquefort cheese and other European products in a trade war. Although American tariffs are back on the table again, thanks to President Trump, the French see McDonald's differently these days, not least because three quarters of the food that goes into the two million meals its branches serve each day is sourced within the country. 'In nine out of ten cases we open new restaurants, we are welcomed,' Augrandenis said. 'In some cases it is even local landowners or local authorities who approach us.' Even if there is sometimes hostility, it quickly blows over. Any hostility that there might have been from Laurent Galonier, who runs Le Rendez Vous, a bar restaurant in Saint-Geniès-de-Malgoirès, is long gone. 'It has had no impact whatsoever on my business,' he said, as a group of regulars sipped pastis at the bar. 'It's also a positive thing,' he said. 'I used to have to drive to the McDonald's in Nîmes and by the time I got it home it was all cold. Now it only takes me a few minutes.'
Times
4 days ago
- Business
- Times
First they took French cities — now McDonald's is the new village café
Home to barely 3,000 people, the village of Saint-Geniès-de-Malgoirès in the south of France has a fine 17th-century church and narrow picturesque streets lined with stone buildings. Since this spring, it can also boast its own branch of McDonald's. In the country that invented haute cuisine, it is part of a drive by the American fast-food giant, which already has 1,560 French branches, to expand beyond its traditional sites in cities and out-of-town commercial centres. Fifty new outlets are due to open this year and, for the first time, many are expected to be in small rural communities. 'McDonald's has become a bit like the village café,' says Jérôme Fourquet, director of the opinion and business strategy department of Ifop, a leading French pollster.
LeMonde
19-06-2025
- Business
- LeMonde
Age-based employment discrimination must end
Working longer? That is assuming the opportunity exists. Calls to push back the minimum retirement age in France have multiplied in response to demographic shifts and the need to maintain the financial sustainability of its redistributive pension system. While successive reforms have increased the employment rate among people aged 55 to 64, they have fallen far short of guaranteeing that workers can stay employed until the legal retirement age. Many older workers have faced a troubling paradox: While they are required to retire later and later, those over 50 continue to face hiring discrimination and often struggle to stay in the workforce long enough to qualify for a full pension. The aging of the French population should prompt a rethinking of the role of older workers within companies. Beyond managing end-of-career transitions and addressing physically demanding work, there is also the challenge of supporting workers who have left the labor market late in their careers and must confront employers' reluctance to recruit them over younger candidates. Persistent stereotypes After being laid off or facing an unsuccessful career change, such as starting a business, workers over 50 often hit a recruitment wall, based solely on their age. This phenomenon discourages career mobility but, above all, exposes job seekers to long-term precariousness. Too young to retire but considered too old to hire, many are forced into unemployment or even onto social welfare programs. As shown in the " Landoy Barometer of an Aging France," conducted with Ifop and published in November 2024, employment of older workers remains subject to persistent stereotypes. They are seen as resistant to change, less adaptable to digital tools, more easily fatigued, and, according to employers, too expensive. In short, these clichés are deeply entrenched, to the point that age is perceived by French people as the greatest source of discrimination, ahead of disability or nationality. This perception stems directly from business practices: Companies support raising the retirement age, but still prefer to hire young people. Increasingly, recruitment processes rely on algorithms programmed to identify age-related criteria, filtering out older candidates. Even if they manage to clear this initial hurdle, older applicants then face skepticism from human resources departments applying the same selection criteria. These practices are inconsistent with the reasoning behind the raising of the retirement age. If careers are to last longer in France, it is essential to remove hiring barriers for older workers by correcting the biases in recruitment algorithms, or even by introducing age-based quotas. Attitudes toward older workers must change, not out of principle, but out of necessity. In 10 years, most of the workforce will be over 45, and the declining number of young graduates will lead to a talent shortage. We can no longer afford to disregard experience.
Bloomberg
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Macron's Approval Rating Rises Slightly to 29%, Ifop Poll Shows
French President Emmanuel Macron's approval rating has increased by 1 point to 29%, according to a poll by Ifop for Ouest France newspaper published on Saturday. The figure for his prime minister, Francois Bayrou, remained stable compared with last month's survey at 27%. This is down from a peak of 39% in February.
El Chorouk
13-05-2025
- Politics
- El Chorouk
Will Dominique de Villepin be the 'salvation of Paris' from its crisis with Algeria?
The escalating crisis in Algerian-French relations has created a pessimistic outlook for the future of these relations, which, according to observers, may not regain their hoped-for calm for at least two years, the remaining term of French President Emmanuel Macron's second presidential term at the Élysée Palace. President Abdelmadjid Tebboune had hinted in his interview with the French newspaper 'L'Opinion' at the impossibility of restoring calm to relations between Algeria and Paris under the current French president's rule. From here, those following these relations are trying to anticipate the post-Macron era, in light of the political discussions in France about the identity of those who will run in the presidential race to succeed Macron, who, according to the French constitution, cannot run for a third term. In this context, the latest poll in France conducted by the reputable 'Ifop' institute revealed that the potential candidate for the French presidential elections, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, is leading everyone with 51 percent of positive opinions, ahead of his counterpart, former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, who received 50 percent. What is interesting is that the Minister of Interior, Bruno Retailleau, who has made targeting Algeria a political project, was not mentioned at all in the poll, while former Prime Minister Michel Barnier came in third place with 46 percent of positive opinions, and in fourth place, former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal came in fourth place with 45 percent of positive opinions. The credibility of this poll lies in the fact that it was conducted at the request of a media platform known for its far-right leanings, 'Sud Radio,' published on Monday, May 12, and its results were in favor of a personality who does not share the political orientations of the far-right. In fact, this personality, considered to be from the Gaullist current, is the closest personality from this current to the left, which currently controls the majority of members of the French National Assembly (the lower house of parliament). In President Tebboune's aforementioned interview with 'L'Opinion,' he had praised some moderate French political figures who have not received their due attention in the French media, which is controlled by financiers known for their far-right leanings, such as Vincent Bolloré. He mentioned Dominique de Villepin among them, considering him the personality who truly represents the legacy of Gaullist thought, which has a special vision regarding French-Arab relations, not represented by many current political figures in this current, referring here to the Minister of Interior, Bruno Retailleau, who promotes that orientation but whose actions on the ground are moving in the opposite direction.
