The French Way (27 page)

By the end of the 1990s Disneyland Paris was the only park in Europe bringing in more than 10 million admissions annually. Between 12 and 13 million “guests” arrived at the year-round theme park while Futuroscope (with 2.8 million visitors) and Parc Asterix (with 2 million visitors),
though prosperous, trailed far behind. Several other parks, like Le Puy de Fou, located in the Vendee, which re-created French history through such shows as a reenactment of the Hundred Years War, were expanding, and others like Vulcania, which exploited the volcanic terrain near Clermont-Ferrand, were in the planning stage. Then there were the numerous aquatic parks on the coasts and many smaller sites inland. Theme parks had become a big business, and Disney had led the way. It demonstrated how such parks could flourish, trained the public in the habits of routine day trips and vacations at resorts, and forced French competitors to keep up. Marne-la-Vallee left plenty of room for French entrepreneurs to find their niche. Before Mickey Mouse settled in, leisure parks in France counted 1.5 million visitors annually. By the mid-1990s there were over sixty such parks attracting more than 20 million people per year. France had become the largest market for theme parks in Europe.
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McDonald's

The McDonald's Corporation experienced a miserable setup phase.
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In 1972 it awarded an exclusive license for Paris to a local entrepreneur, Raymond Dayan. Within a few years Dayan was operating a dozen restaurants, some of which were among McDonald's most profitable foreign performers. But when inspectors arrived in 1977 to test whether or not the Parisian units met company standards, they were appalled. They found rancid cooking oil, grease-covered walls and floors, and open cans of insect spray atop containers of hamburger sauce. Entering the branch at Gare St. Lazare, customers had to pass through the arcade of a porno movie house. The next year McDonald's sent another team of inspectors, this time accompanied by French officials, who snapped pictures of dog droppings in the stores and found Dayan charging for ketchup. McDonald's initiated legal action to terminate Dayan's franchise, but it took four years and a trial in Illinois for the firm to recover
control. Dayan claimed that Chicago simply wanted to get its hands on a profitable franchise. In 1982 a judge ruled that McDonald's had the right to cancel Dayan's license. But more than a decade had elapsed before McDonald's could try to rehabilitate its French operations. Ray Kroc's company had to play catch-up in France thanks to the fiasco with its first franchise. It should be noted however, that the misadventure in France was not unusual in Europe. McDonald's had serious setup problems in the Netherlands, England, and Germany as well.

By the time McDonald's was ready to relaunch operations, it faced strong competition within a fast food sector that had been expanding quickly since the early 1970s.
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In 1984 it had only sixteen units in France. While McDonald's struggled with its legal problems, French burger chains like Free Time, backed by the hotel chain Accor, had entered the market; it, like others, directly copied Ray Kroc's operations and marketing. Both Free Time and France Quick, the Belgian chain, had many more units than McDonald's in the mid-1980s. Burger King had also opened shop and was soon operating more outlets in Paris than McDonald's. And Dayan was still functioning: he renamed his outlets O'Kitch, modified his menu to suit French tastes—for example, adding Bearnaise sauce for his hamburgers, and went on making money. There were also a host of small homegrown competitors with names like Manhattan Burger, Love Burger, or Asterix Burger. Despite the rapid growth in hamburger vendors, a substantial share of the fast food market in the mid-1980s belonged to the
viennoiseries
that had also blossomed during the 1970s, led by chains like La Brioche Doree serving a more traditional menu like croissants and pastries. Then McDonald's made its move.

In 1984 a company-owned unit reopened in an upscale Parisian quarter, attempting to erase the memory of Dayan's small, minimally furnished stores. Expansion would be high-profile and expensive targeting high-density urban centers and fashionable neighborhoods in Paris and provincial cities. McDonald's paid $6 million to lease its flagship restaurant on the glamorous Champs-Elysees. The new units
would replicate the standard external and interior decor, employ the highly rationalized operating methods perfected in the United States, and rely on tight quality control from the U.S. corporate headquarters. The strategy worked. Within three years Accor sold its Free Time chain, saying it was too costly to compete with the Americans. By 1990 there were 110 McDonald's restaurants in France, and three years later there were 240. By then McDonald's and France Quick controlled two-thirds of the national market.
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Within the French fast food business hamburger sales grew at the expense of more traditional fare. In 1988 burgers accounted for 48 percent of fast food consumption; by 1992 their share had soared to 81 percent. At the same time, sales at viennoiseries slumped from 29 percent to 8 percent. The latter, however, also continued to expand, with chains like La Croissanterie, La Brioche Doree, and La Viennoisiere leading the way. Sales of sandwiches grew, but trailed behind hamburgers, and “take home” fare was still in its infancy. Despite the growth in fast food, it still accounted for only 10 percent of total restaurant sales in the late 1980s.
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A survey of fast food restaurants in Paris and Lyons conducted in 1986 indicated that customers for burgers, compared to those who used viennoiseries, tended to be more male than female and more youthful (68 percent were under twenty-five years old).
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Middle-and low-level managers, office staff, and the unemployed, which included many adolescents, far outnumbered factory workers. The reasons cited for choosing fast food rather than a traditional restaurant or a cafe were the speed of service (81 percent) and the price (41 percent), followed by atmosphere (32 percent) and taste (25 percent) while, as one might expect, the primary reason for selecting a cafe was ambiance.

McDonald's corporate managers in the United States, who worried that Europeans might perceive their business as an intrusive American multinational, tried, from the outset, to give their operations a measure of autonomy. Franchise owners were local entrepreneurs who enjoyed some say in marketing and product innovation, but the headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois, kept tight rein over essentials like operations,
menu, and suppliers. In Germany, at least at first, localizing went too far. In the early 1970s Ray Kroc allowed his German franchises the freedom to prepare fried chicken breast, serve beer, and make their units look “German,” complete with heavy wood paneling and dim lighting.
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They failed to turn a profit: quality control was difficult with chicken; beer encouraged young layabouts; and the dark interiors were not inviting to families. Kroc intervened: he eliminated the chicken (but kept the beer), had the units remodeled to look more American, and attracted children with techniques honed at home, such as birthday clubs. In a few years they were turning a profit. The head of McDonald's international division drew a lesson from such mistakes, noting, “McDonald's is an American food system. If we go into a new country and incorporate their food products into our menu, we lose our identity.”
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A superior strategy was to adhere to the American way and wait—if necessary, for years—for foreign consumers to accept it. Figuratively speaking, these Americans only wanted to speak
un peu de Français.

The new French franchises, nevertheless, made some modifications to the menu like serving a mustard sauce rather than ketchup on the Big Mac, reducing the sugar in the salad dressing, serving Evian water and beer, and offering a wider range of desserts. But nothing essential about the menu, the presentation of food, or restaurant operation was changed; the McDonald's “system” prevailed. To accommodate French sociability seats were movable so that patrons could form ad hoc gatherings. Owners also had to make adjustments because French customers tended to eat at conventional mealtime hours and spend a longer time in the restaurant than Americans.
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McDonald's was willing to make such adjustments to attract the French, but it assumed they, like others in Europe and around the world, wanted what Americans wanted. They wanted the basic McDonald's menu; the bright, informal atmosphere; the relatively low prices, the gift toys and play areas for children.

McDonald's, much like Disney and Coca-Cola, exploited or traded on its identification with America. All these businesses associated
their products with the stereotypical image of Americans: young, playful, informal, wholesome, and modern. McDonald's aimed at providing the French with an American eating experience. The appeal of the Golden Arches in the land of the Gauls—at least initially, as Rick Fantasia has argued—was less the food than it was the cultural association.
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The appeal was the American ambiance—although fast service and price were also important. Young adults, who composed over 80 percent of McDonald's' paying customers in the late 1980s, patronized the restaurant because it was like eating in America.
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What they liked was: the bright lights and noise, the colorful employee uniforms, the absence of adult mediators like waiters, the self-service, and the open seating. One first-time customer said it was like “visiting the United States,” and adolescents found it “relaxing” or “cool” and “un-French.” McDonald's traded on these associations in its advertisements: eating at the Golden Arches was fun and mildly rebellious. In one TV ad a child intoned proper table manners (“Don't eat with your fingers.” “Don't make noise.”) while pictures of customers showed them eating french fries with their fingers and joking. Eating at McDonald's, drinking Cokes, and visiting Euro Disney were what Americans did—and it was fun and hip. These corporations celebrated, and profited from, an intrinsic market advantage—offering others what Americans enjoyed. When asked by a polling agency in 1994 what products they most associated with the United States,
le hamburger
was number one (83 percent) for a cross-section of the populace.
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French food purists, however, refused to allow
le Big Mac
to have its way, especially with children. They mounted a counterattack. From the late 1980s on, schools held a Taste Week
(Semaine de gout)
featuring activities like bringing chefs into classrooms or taking children to farmers' markets.
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The Ritz hotel participated by showing students from a neighborhood school how to a make a zabaglione sauce. In time Taste Week expanded to include adults and held its programs at sites like hospitals and museums. Jack Lang, then minister of culture, launched a more focused pedagogical campaign. Taste Classes for a few
thousand ten-and eleven-year-olds began in 1991 and quickly grew to 25,000 students in four hundred public schools.
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These classes aimed at weaning children off of fast food by making them discriminating consumers. For ten weeks volunteers, including chefs and nutritionists, taught classes helping the children “discover” the five senses and the four basic
saveurs
and learn about meal preparation, regional cuisines, and gastronomy. The Ministry of Education, the French Institute of Taste, and the National Council of Culinary Arts, which was inspired by Lang to protect the
patrimoine culinaire
, collaborated on the project and sponsors included the dairy industry and the Danone company. Whether or not such campaigns curbed children's appetites for
le Big Mac
is open to question.

Figure 7. “Taste Week” for a class of seven-year-old schoolchildren in Paris wearing paper toques. Courtesy Jean-Claude Coutausse/
New York
Times/Redux.

When critics tried to tarnish the home of the Golden Arches as a heartless, American multinational, McDonald's emphasized its virtues and its French character. It established a Ronald McDonald House outside Paris for the families of children being treated at a nearby cancer center, and two others in Marseilles and Bordeaux. Like Disney, McDonald's reminded its hosts that it had helped relieve unemployment by hiring thousands of young French people. In large cities, more than a third of its employees were of recent immigrant origin.
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When farmers picketed McDonald's in 1992 at the height of the imbroglio over the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the Chicago firm counterattacked. McDonald's ran ads showing how half the regions of France provided supplies for the burger chain. A spokeswoman declared, “In France the only thing American at McDonald's is the name. Of our 18,000 employees only three are Americans.”
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