Starbucks, Atkins and Plastic Surgery

France at the crossroads

It’s all happening in France at the moment.

Last week, Aissa Dermouche, a 57-year-old businessman, was appointed prefect (the government’s senior official) of the Jura region near the Swiss border. Routine stuff, except that Dermouche is an Algerian-born Muslim, and that makes him unique.

Dermouche is the first foreign-born or Muslim prefect in France. The French government is determined to better integrate the country’s 5 million-strong Muslim population. The appointment of Dermouche had “positive discrimination” (otherwise known as “affirmative action”) written all over it.

Fine – except that, as the International Herald Tribune noted, France is supposed not to believe in “positive discrimination”, which, the French-based paper says, “has traditionally been seen as an ill-conceived American invention that celebrates differences and encourages divisions.”

The IHT contrasted the rhetoric of powerful interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy – himself of Hungarian descent - with that of President Jacques Chirac. Sarkozy spoke of “categories”, “handicaps”, and “escape”. Chirac said it was not “acceptable” to “appoint people based on their origins.” (The president stated last week that he’d ordered his cabinet in July 2003 to appoint a prefect of “immigrant origins” – only to then claim that Dermouche’s appointment was consistent with “a basic republican principle ... the recognition of merit, whatever the origins of the person involved.”)

French officials have been charged with coining a better term than “positive discrimination”, which goes down like a lead balloon in La Republique. (Sarkozy came up with “republican voluntarism”, an early candidate for 2004’s most misleading political expression; last year, prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin offered “positive mobilisation”, admitting that the idea of “good forms of discrimination on the one hand and bad ones on the other might be seen as a confused notion.”)

You said it.

Four days after his appointment, a bomb exploded in Dermouche’s car. No one was hurt, and at the time of the Diary being written, no one had claimed responsibility (although, just before publication, the partner of Dermouche’s ex-wife was arrested!). Immediately after the event, all eyes fell on the Islamic fundamentalists and the far right, if one can tell them apart these days.

The car was parked in a residential neighbourhood in Nantes. Chirac and Sarkozy expressed their outrage. “This attack is a revolting and stupid gesture because it will not deter the government in its desire to achieve full integration,” said defence minister Michèle Alliot-Marie. Dermouche and his family were placed under police protection.

Meanwhile, French cities, including Nantes, were filled with Muslim demonstrators opposed to the French governments controversial ban on religious symbols in public schools, including headscarves (and now, it would appear, beards). (In fact, the protests extended way beyond France’s borders. There were demonstrations across the globe, in London, Norway, even Baghdad.) The New York Times quoted one banner in Paris: “France, you are my country. Veil, you are my life.”

“We do not want confrontation,” said Dalil Boubakeur, president of the National Council of Muslims, who supports the ban. “The Muslim population of France has faith in the republic,” said the Union of Islamic Organisations in France, a conservative group opposed to the ban.

Bean there, globalised that

As if this wasn’t enough French self-examination to be getting on with, the first Starbucks opened in Paris this week.

The aim, it seems, is to bring “to-go” coffee culture to France, an event so unimaginable the mere thought has some of us choking on our Gauloises. In France, for those of you who missed the enlightenment, coffee does not come in large paper cups, it is not drunk by people walking in the street, it is short, strong, black and superb, and you don’t hear people saying, “Je voudrais une frappuccino.”

The Diary, in Paris only the other week, strolled past the new Starbucks outlet on the Avenue de l’Opera. It was boarded up – something it might have to get used to. A sign read “Passionate about coffee”, or some such thing. It’s a bit like an Englishman going to Madras and opening a curry-house, telling locals how “crazy about curry” he is.

“We didn’t come [to Paris] to teach the French about coffee,” Howard Schultz, chief executive of Starbucks, promised the New York Times. “We recognise that our success around the world doesn’t mean we will succeed here.”

Time will tell. Ten more outlets are scheduled to open in Paris over the next year. “Politicians will keep grumbling about Americanisation in 2004,” predicts The Economist. “But ordinary Frenchmen will consume its popular culture with zeal”.

In his brilliant two - part analysis of the transatlantic estrangement in the International Herald Tribune this week, John Vinocur quoted former French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine (the man who called the United States a “unliateralist hyperpower” back in 1998). “There’s jealousy,” Vedrine said of the French attitude towards the US. “The United States became what France wanted to be, the universal country. When I criticize the French, I recognize the neurosis there.”

Diet revolution!

Speaking of consumerism and dietary habits...

The Diary can’t help noticing the effect the über-fashionable Atkins diet is having on markets worldwide.

The diet, for those of you on Mars, preaches low carbohydrates and high protein. The US meat industry (despite the recent BSE scare) has enjoyed a bumper year. Steakhouses have been bulging at the seams. These are not good days to be a cow.

In his “World of Investing” column for the International Herald Tribune, James K. Glassman writes how “Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution”, just one of many books in the Atkins industry library, has sold 10 million copies and been on the New York Times best-seller list for five years.

And it’s not just the publishing industry that has cashed in. “Sales of eggs, which are condemned in low-fat diets for being high in cholesterol, have surged,” writes Glassman. “Sales of orange juice, which Atkins followers avoid because of its carbohydrate content, have fallen.”

Nuts are up too. Glassman cites John B. Sanfilippo & Son, a marketer and distributor of nuts (which are idolised in the fatty world of Atkins). Last year, the company’s stock quintupled.

Meanwhile, Monterey Pasta (pasta is anathema in the Atkins world) saw its earnings fall by 87%.

No joke.

Cal-Maine Foods, which sells eggs to retailers, saw its revenue rise 58% last year. Stock has risen to $31.45 from just $3.55 at the end of 2002. Earnings per share went from 17 cents to $1.28.

It almost sounds like a conspiracy!

The message to the investor is clear: invent a diet, turn it into a craze, then chuck your money into the companies which produce the products you endorse. It could hardly be simpler!

Still, be warned: the bubble may burst. This week, the promoters of the Atkins diet warned their worshippers to limit the amount of steak and eggs they wolf down their throats. Apparently, there’s a sudden concern about heart disease.

Oh, yeah, that!

The Diary can’t resist quoting Ellen Bain, a graphic designer in Brooklyn, whose dismay was reported in a long and earnest article in the New York Times: “A lot of people will be totally shocked! [The Atkins books said] the fat in the diet is very good for you; it doesn’t make any difference what kind of fat it is. There are no limits of any kind in the meat department, like steak and eggs for breakfast, a burger for lunch and beef stir-fry for dinner.”

The ironic thing about all this, of course, is that 25% of Americans are registered obese. While the markets swell and sag in response to the diet industry, America at large keeps on scoffing, without so much as a whisper of the word “diet” passing their greasy lips.

There’s a newsworthy point here. This week, the US objected to World Health Organisation (WHO) plans to slim-down global obesity rates. The WHO executive board agreed to cut the world’s intake of salt, fat and sugar, before adjourning for lunch.

The US went into a hot sweat, with a shortness of breath. “Why not just ban coffee in France!”, came the cry from Washington. As with the Kyoto treaty on global climate change, the US wasn’t buying the science. The WHO was accused of picking on porky Americans. Atkins logic is going global.

For some reason, the Bush administration has been accused of pandering to its colossal food industry. If you didn’t know any better – and if you’re a regular Diary reader you should do – you’d think America was a giant eating machine with Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, KFC and their rivals pulling the levers and wielding enormous cultural and political power. This, of course, is a gross misrepresentation peddled by jealous Euro-weenies. Greenwich Village, for one, is a health food Mecca.

[Globally, just so you know, 300 million people are obese. 750 million are overweight. Just be thankful you’re not the Earth’s core.]

Silvio’s surgical strike

The perch of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has been decidedly shaken of late. The Italian Constitutional Court overturned a new law shielding him from criminal prosecution while in office; President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi refused to sign into law a bill a bill allowing him to expand his media empire; he lost his case against The Economist newspaper; and the world’s media reported his contribution to the EU constitutional debacle under the Italian presidency (essentially: “This is boring. Let’s talk about football and women”).

Silvio went missing for almost a month. Rumours abounded that he was sickly. But apparently, there was nothing to be worried about. The prime minister, a little shy about some plastic surgery he’s had done to remove the bags under his eyes, was hanging out in his luxury Sardinian villa. “Berlusconi is fine,” said cabinet minister Guilano Urbani, claiming to see no signs of the surgery.

Silvio refused to appear before reporters (a favoured tactic of his pal in the White House).

Well, wouldn’t you?

(Read more on this essential story, including how Silvio uses his media empire to pretend to a fuller head of hair).

Figures of the week

500
The number of US soldiers killed in Iraq since the beginning of the war

43%
The number of Americans who think George W. Bush has united the country

44%
The number of Americans who think George W. Bush has divided the country

Quotes of the week

“Because of American leadership and resolve, the world is changing for the better.”
President George W. Bush in his State of the Union speech.

“Dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment”.
Bush’s cryptic State of the Union description of Iraq’s alleged WMD programme.

“He probably would have made Saudi Arabia the first automobile-producing nation on earth and put her in charge of the business.”
Bill Clinton on the Prophet Mohammed. (Clinton was speaking at an economic forum in Saudi Arabia. Reuters said his speech, in which he also said Mohammed would have let his wife behind the wheel of his car, was “warmly applauded by women among the delegates, covered in black robes, or abayas, and segregated from men by a screen running the length of the conference hall.”)

“I severely condemn this matter and warn of grave consequences.”
Saudi Arabian Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz al-Sheikh reacting to the news that some businesswomen (including leading businesswoman Lubna al-Olayan) appeared at an economic forum in Jeddah unveiled in the presence of men.

“Beards are not at stake because we have young boys and they don’t have beards.”
French MP Jacques Mynard on the proposed ban on beards in France’s public schools as religious symbols (see lead item above).

“My colleagues and I have chosen one goal, to make sure that there is a free and competitive election.”
President Mohammad Khatami of Iran, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“I saw nothing and spoke to no one who could convince me that they could build a nuclear device with that metal.”
Siegfried Hecker, on of the US scientists who visited the Yongbyon nuclear complex in North Korea.

“We do not want to go and have people trade off our reputation.”
A spokesman for the UK’s Met office (an office of weather specialists owned by the Ministry of Defence) objecting the efforts of the New York Mets baseball team to register the word “Met” as a trademark in Europe. (Read more).

“There are some people who do not want to see the foreigners, the white man. They do not want to share their life with them. They think it is because of them that they are becoming very poor.”
Guy Eloi Gnenao, head of the Foundation for Jean Helene-Irheam – the French journalist who was shot at point blank range in Ivory Coast.

Contact the Diary: Dominic.Hilton@openDemocracy.net