Carrefour Boycott In The Works
News April 19th, 2008
If you live in China, and you have a mobile phone, you’ve probably gotten the request to boycott Carrefour, a French department store chain, for “the love of China” and as a reaction to the torch protests in Paris. Seems a one-day boycott is in the works for May 1st, the beginning of the May holidays in China.
(Ironically, Carrefour last made the news in November when a limited-time sale caused a stampede, killing 3 shoppers and injuring between 20 and 35 others, depending on which paper you read.)
Throngs of Chinese have called on consumers to boycott Carrefour SA to protest against the French supermarket chain’s perceived support for Tibet separatists.
The Carrefour boycott call has been widely spread since the weekend through bulletin boards, online and cell-phone instant messages to Chinese people from home and abroad. People have been urged not to buy goods from Carrefour outlets from May 1.
Petitioners say Carrefour’s major shareholder, LVMH Group, has donated funds to the Dalai Lama. They also expressed fury after some French people joined Tibet separatists to disrupt the 2008 Beijing Olympics torch relay in Paris two weeks ago.
The campaign drew great public attention yesterday, along with a protest against French-branded cosmetics.
“I have heard some French politicians are really in favor of the Tibet separatists from Websites and the international media, so I think the campaign could be a channel for us to express our feelings,” a 27-year-old office employee, surnamed Shi, told Shanghai Daily yesterday.
On the plus side, I can probably shop that day without risking death by stampede.
Via Shanghai Daily, thanks to a link on Lost Laowai.
Edit: More on the protests from CNN.
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This is an interesting development - protesters protesting about a protest. Read an interesting article on the rise of Chinese nationalism and if something isn’t done to control it, it could backlash China during the Olympics. I saw a Chinese guy at the National Stadium on Friday with an anti-CNN t-shirt. So much for the Olympics being about peace and global co-operation. It makes me sad the way the games are going.
I’m really bummed about it too… I’m starting to feel like the games will just be a chance for people to spout nationalist slogans (on all sides!) and not about athletics or peace at all.