Say It Ain’t So: McDonald’s Is Popular In France
Having finished off “Fast Food Nation” just last night, it was more than a little disheartening to come across this article over at Slate chronicling McDonald’s’ slow takeover of the gastronomic interests of the French. As is revealed in the piece:
“The company was pulling in over a million people per day in France, and annual turnover was growing at twice the rate it was in the United States. Arresting as those numbers were, there was an even more astonishing data point: By 2007, France had become the second-most profitable market in the world for McDonald’s, surpassed only by the land that gave the world fast food.”
This is so wrong on so many levels: nutritionally, culturally, economically. Is there anything more sad then when you’re traveling than stumbling across a McDonald’s? As was summed up at the end of “Fast Food Nation,” there’s only one way to change things: with your stomach. Don’t eat there, don’t bring your kids there, don’t order those Shamrock Shakes no matter how tasty they are. It’s the only way to tame the monster.