French cullchur

[Roger Baker]

Since the French are pretty suffisticated, it takes a special kind of 
con artist to
get them to drop their guard and beg you  to let them to let you pick their
pockets.

Just as Texans like to pretend that they can still remember the Alamo 
for a rush of
cheap tribalism, so do the French like to pretend to be a hereditary 
master race
still capable of fending off the Roman legions after millenia of 
backsliding.

First find a patriot, and automatically you have also found a sheep 
anxious to be fleeced
according to similar and universally  applicable principles.  -- Roger


                       **********************************

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0124-03.htm


Asterix Promoting McBurgers in France

To the chagrin of some, Gallic cartoon hero supplants the clown Ronald 
McDonald in the 'glocalization' of fast food marketing

by Murray Campbell

  Asterix, the Gallic cartoon hero who liked nothing better than beating 
up the Roman legionnaires who occupied his country more than 2,000 years 
ago, has met his match.

The McDonald's hamburger chain that occupies villages throughout 
modern-day France has commandeered the diminutive warrior to promote its 
food as part of a marketing campaign launched yesterday that pushes 
aside the venerable clown, Ronald McDonald.

The move to link a French icon with television commercials, posters and 
a new series of "ancient Gallic" burgers has generated a good deal of 
controversy in France, where hostility to American-style fast food is 
widespread.

"The bad food giant has taken over the indomitable Gaul," noted 
Télérama, a French cultural magazine.

But others are noting that the U.S. restaurant giant's move to use 
Asterix and his oafish sidekick, Obelix, in a marketing campaign 
represents a victory for French exceptionalism and might even help 
McDonald's in turning the tide against traditionalists campaigning 
against the invasion of la malbouffe (junk food)...