Salon.com Technology | Watch out for “Old Europe”: She can bite
So what would happen if US consumers and businesses boycotted French products and services?
Even if a patriotic consumer wanted to punish cowardly, money-grubbing “frogs,” he’d have to be a committed student of mergers and acquisitions to spot tainted Gallic products.
Liquor: Stay clear of Dom Perignon, right? But what about Seagram’s, Royal Canadian, Glenlivet, Wild Turkey Bourbon, Jacobs Creek Australian wines (all owned by France’s Pernod Picard)?
Magazines: Woman’s Day, Car and Driver (France’s Hachette Group). Soft Sheen Black Hair Products, Helena Rubinstein, Giorgio Armani (L’Oreal), the Athlete’s Foot (Group Rallye). The First Hawaiian Bank (BNP Paribas), RCA TVs and DVDs (Thompson), Motel 6 , Red Roof Inns (Accor), Nissan, which just built a giant $1.4 billion plant in Mississippi (Renault), Uniroyal Tires (Michelin), Taylor Made Golf Clubs (Adidas-Saloman).
Good old American entertainment? Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Motown Records, MP3.com, Polygram, the Sundance Channel, Universal Studios (all belonged to France’s Vivendi until the flailing company recently shucked off its U.S. entertainment interests, a move that had nothing to do with politics. Vivendi, however, still runs the water system for cities like Indianapolis).
You could always hire a consultant from Ernst & Young to guide you through the tangled skein of corporate ties, but beware: Ernst & Young is also French-owned (Cap Gemini.)
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The irony, however, is that in the United States itself a key customer of French subsidiaries is the U.S. government and the Pentagon. The huge French catering firm Sodexho, for instance, is paid over a hundred million dollars a year to feed U.S. Marines, at every one of their American bases. That eight-year contract was denounced last spring by a clutch of furious congressmen. They backed down when they realized that ending it would cost American, not French, jobs. Sodexho has 130,000 employees across North America.That’s for starters. Aerospatiale provides helicopters to the U.S. military and Coast Guard, while Dassault sells Falcon 20’s to the Coast Guard. The American subsidiaries of France’s Michelin supply the Pentagon with tires for everything from advanced fighter aircraft to tactical wheeled vehicles, not to mention sales to NASA for the Space Shuttle.
So if you live in Indianapolis, don’t drink the water, and if you’re stationed on a Marine base, eat your meals off-base . . . . .