Proletarian shopping in French supermarkets
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In a protest against the cost of food, poverty activists are holding surprise picnics in French supermarkets at the end of every month. They help themselves to products for sale and break open packaged food in an attempt to show how difficult life is for many families at the end of the month, when the money is running out.
It's Saturday afternoon in a large supermarket on the outskirts of Paris. People are filling up their carts with groceries. It’s the busiest day of the week for this Leclerc, one of the handful of supermarket chains that dominate the French retail food industry.
All of a sudden, about a dozen people gather at the garden furniture section of the store. They break open the packages of food from their carts and invite everyone to participate in an impromptu picnic.
The young men and women who lead the operation tell other shoppers to take back a little of what has been stolen from them. They say the supermarket makes too much money on the food it sells. Within minutes, several ordinary shoppers have joined the picnic-slash-protest.
After about 15 minutes, the police arrive and the activists leave. In the end, no charges are laid and Leclerc head office declined to comment on the incident, most likely because these improvised picnics aren’t completely illegal. An old French law states customers have the right to taste wine, oil and other products before buying.
Frederic Daniel, one of the activists, says the point is to raise awareness about how difficult it is for many families to feed themselves. But Philippe Moati, an economist specialized in food retail, says the activists have chosen a convenient target, because everyone loves to hate large supermarket chains in France.
Listen to a report from Network Europe's Genevieve Oger:
