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20th anniversary of José Bové’s 'attack' on a McDonald's in rural France
- beaner 7y agoWhy do US trade deals always seem to involve agriculture? I'm in favor of fair/open trade, and in my mind that would seem to come down to just trying to remove barriers, restrictions and tariffs for all products and industries equally. But it always seems to involve custom agreements for mass purchases of agriculture. Why is that?
- sacheendra 7y agoI guess it comes to supply and demand. Other countries want US technology and services. They don't want US agricultural products as eluded to in the above thread. Thus, trying to sell stuff others don't want ends up making more noise compared to selling stuff they do want. The US does this because: 1. National security (US farmers wouldn't grow stuff if nobody bought it, which is a problem if the US ever goes to war. Then, they might suddenly need it.) 2. Vote banks (Rural US happens to be the key in deciding elections and support for laws. Due to the electoral college and each state having 2 senators.) 3. Ideology (The reasons you mentioned. Free market ...)
- Simon_says 7y agoAlluded
- benj111 7y agoAre you alluding to the fact that they eluded using the word 'alluded'?
- Simon_says 7y agoYes.
- bdauvergne 7y agoBut why does US farmer wanting to export to EU don't just enforce EU norms on food production ? Do not use hormones or forbidden pesticides in the EU, enforce traceability of all all inputs. Then they could negotiate easily with EU for their products, checked by EU validated organisations, to enter the EU market. I often think that it's not for the some free market ideology but just to force other countries (like EU) to abandon any normative sovereignty. I understand that a global agricultural market with a single norm would be better for mercantile exchanges, but for the single producer EU (or China, or whatever) is a sufficiently big market to be targeted exclusively if they want. OMC should not conflate normative barriers with tariff barriers, they have a real purpose (maybe USA is wrong to eat so much pesticides).
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- hokkos 7y agoThey didn't want to change their practice to export, nor wanted to have any limitation, but they finally did and recently got a bigger share of the import quota. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-02/u-s-and-eu-to-announce-beef-deal-at-white-house-on-friday https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-02/u-s-and-e...
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- pixl97 7y agoBecause the US produces a massive amount of agricultural product and the ag lobby is gigantic in the US. If you attempt to cut out the ag politicians you'll quickly find yourself unable to get bills passed in Washington.
- tomp 7y agoWell, it's pretty obvious why they do it (more exports, therefore more money, for the US), but I find it extremely hypocritical that they do it... "let's make a free trade deal where we can sell you food that our government extremely subsidizes" well that just doesn't sound very much like a free market, more like a state-subsidized one... then they have the audacity to complain when foreign governments do the same (e.g. with aircraft companies).
- reirob 7y ago> As an aside: I will hear this ocassionally from Americans visiting here. That the food at McDonald's tastes better. This is probably why. Fewer chemicals, more local produce.
- armandososa 7y ago> The only real surprise is that Americans seemed baffled when someone pushes back. Y do u not want freedom?
- dang 7y agoPlease don't do this here.
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- tyingq 7y agoPretty good NPR article about French McDonalds locations: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/01/24/145698222/why-mcdonalds-in-france-doesnt-feel-like-fast-food https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/01/24/145698222/wh... Including a leader picture of the McBaguette. Never ate there, but I have had a decent local McBier in .de.
- vanilla-almond 7y agoA comparison of ingredients in McDonalds French fries in the UK and US from a 2015 story: https://boingboing.net/2015/01/22/usa-mcdonalds-fries-have-14.html https://boingboing.net/2015/01/22/usa-mcdonalds-fries-have-1...
- mrguyorama 7y ago>Europe actually regulates this ingredient because they know this man-made chemical was never intended to be consumed by humans. This whole time McDonalds has known about this and chooses to continue to serve it’s US citizens silly putty. Some of that article is absolute trash.
- mcculley 7y agoWhat does one mean by, "accept American beef stuffed with hormones"? Would individual buyers not get the option to make choices? Would labeling be prohibited?
- wazoox 7y ago"Personal choice" is incredibly overrated (in the US, at last). Actually, most of the time (as the "nudge theory" shows), individual choice is mostly socially constructed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory
- vorpalhex 7y agoHaving a choice and using the choice are different. Nudge theory is heavily critiqued and rightfully so - we know Choice Architecture is a thing, but humans are still free agents. Just because you don't like the choices people make doesn't mean you can then constrain their ability to make choice.
- ambicapter 7y ago> we know Choice Architecture is a thing, but humans are still free agents Saying "yeah sure, but no", is just a cheap dismissal of GP's point.
- lm28469 7y agoJust like you have the "choice" between cheap veggies (sparkled with monsanto's health elixir that may or may not be damaging to you and the environment) vs local/bio veggies which cost a bit more, sure. Once you flood a market with cheap alternatives it becomes a race to the bottom and it's a losing battle for the customer. Plus it's not like you'll walk into a fast food / street restaurant and have the choice between cheap imported beef vs local beef either. As far as I can tell it was the classic "Accept our deal or face consequences" type of US foreign policies. I can't be the only one thinking that importing meat from the other side of the world for a purely economical reason is insanity, especially when the local meat market is perfectly fine and of better quality. Reminds me of all the meat scandals we had in the last decade in France, all of it coming from foreign countries, all of it due to companies trying to increase their margin at all cost: horse meat sold as beef, sick/old animals sold as healthy, minced meat made primarily skin, cartilage and other by-products, yummy...
- tradeWar 7y agoAn early american trade war. Now they are even more aggressive at it and are imprisoning everyone they can: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-15/-the-american-trap-an-executive-s-view-from-a-u-s-prison-cell https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-15/-the-amer...
- maeln 7y agoAs a French, I didn't expect to see José Bové on HN. He is indeed a controversial person. A lot of his action where as much praised as they were criticized. Especially when it came to GMO which he was fiercely against. But overall, all his fight, kind of as what the twitter thread says, where against globalization (in the food industry) and in some way for protectionism within France / EU. I know a lot of people consider protectionism a bad thing, but a free market only works when the different actor have roughly the same power. It was (and it still is) not the case, as US had the power to make other actor accept their term and their product, which was heavily damaging the local farmer.
- lm28469 7y agoHe's the kind of person you need to have if you want to fight against globalisation. Sure he's extreme, sure some of his actions are barely legal, if not straight up illegal, sure many people don't like him... But look on the other side, do you think companies like monsanto play it fair and nice ? You need people equally motivated to keep the system somewhat balanced.
- kiliantics 7y agoJust because something is legal/illegal, doesn't make it right/wrong. I think we will all have to start getting comfortable with illegal things happening -- and even participating in them -- if we want to stop environmental catastrophe.
- the_seraphim 7y agowoah, who is to decide what is right and wrong if not the system we designed to formalise the rights and wrongs of the countries we are in? I'm all for GMO as its the only way we realistically have a chance to feed all these damn children people keep having.
- brokenmachine 7y agoGMO isn't about feeding people, we already produce enough food for everyone, it's just not spread evenly. GMO is about profits first and foremost.
- georgiecasey 7y ago> If you're wondering why there was, and continues to be, resentment of the U.S. around the globe, the McDonald's protest is a pretty good example of how America manages to look like a bully to suit its economic interests. but the US didn't sentence this guy to prison, it was French courts
- Arkanosis 7y agoThe point of the thread is that US manages to look like a bully not because it sentenced him to prison (which it didn't, indeed), but because it placed tariffs on EU agricultural products in retaliation for it refusing its beef stuffed with hormones.
- andonisus 7y agoIs this not standard practice for how countries trade with each other?
- stronglikedan 7y agoYes, but common practice and current narrative often conflict.
- duxup 7y agoThat whole twitter stream is a good example of "bias" claims that seem to actually explicitly be "this article doesn't say exactly what I want it to say". I don't think the word "attack" is as loaded a phrase as that person thinks it is... and less loaded than the tweets linked to.
- vinay427 7y ago"If you're wondering why there was, and continues to be, resentment of the U.S. around the globe, the McDonald's protest is a pretty good example of how America manages to look like a bully to suit its economic interests." This feels like an exaggerated trope to me. There's certainly some concept of resentment of the US around the globe. Having traveled to a decent number of places and lived outside the US, however, I can't say that it's a significant amount among countries that the US makes some effort to maintain a cordial relationship with. A trade war involving tariffs and food regulations is still rather minor in the grand scheme of diplomacy and conflict.
- dmix 7y agoEdited: took a comment out about France which I realized was baiting some people the wrong way.
- vinay427 7y agoWell, in the case of citizenship I might pick France (it is #1 on the nationality index, after all) due to the EU and freedom of movement in the largest number of desirable places. https://www.nationalityindex.com/ https://www.nationalityindex.com/ However, as a place to live it would probably be far less clear for most people.
- Thrymr 7y ago> Don't worry, given the option between a citizenship in either I'd bet 99% of people would choose to live in the US instead of France. To challenge your made-up statistic, I'd bet that isn't even true of Americans if they were offered a choice and a work permit for France.
- dmix 7y agoSure but I'm not talking about a vacation or retirement. But a choice to live your life in either. Just my own estimation, so take that FWIW Not trying to trash them or start a flamewar. The French people and government do have a reputation in the Anglo world, probably equally as much as the US does in Europe. The country-side and cities are very nice there no doubt.
- boyadjian 7y agoIn France, Mac Donald is an integral part of the French landscape, just like KFC or Burger King. Attacking this chain for primary anti-Americanism makes no sense.
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- clydethefrog 7y agoWhen I visited France, I mostly saw restaurants by Quick, the first hamburger chain founded in Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quick_(restaurant) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quick_(restaurant)
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