Magali, the photographer, is appalled. We are in McDonald's, just around the
corner from the Louvre in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, and we are
tucking into some breakfast. With a beer. Because we can.
“But what ees thees?” she demands.
Croque monsieur. Well, technically a Croque McDo. Jambon and a spot of
fromage. It's rather good.
“No,” says Magali. “It is not. A croque is something ... beautiful. But thees
is ... my god.”
Correction. Magali is not appalled. This is something deeper than appalled.
This is existential.
Magali doesn't eat in McDonald's. In fact, she says, she doesn't know anybody
who eats in McDonald's. Stop any Frenchman on the street - and we stop
plenty - and he will shrug and snarl and say that he doesn't eat in
McDonald's, either.
Yet an awful lot of people do eat in McDonald's. In this city of all things
haute cuisine and gastronomique, you will find almost 70 restaurants under
golden arches, with even more dotted around the outer suburbs. That's much
the same as London, but with only a third of the people.
McDonald's, or “macdoh” as it is ubiquitously known, is France's dirty secret.
In 2007, as you may have read on our business pages, the chain's French
revenues increased by 11 per cent to €3 billion (£2.3 billion). That's more
than it generates in Britain. In terms of profit, France is second only to
the US itself - and this in the land that first realised that food wasn't
just about eating. How on earth did this come about?
Asking the customers can take you only so far. At the next table a family are
eating together. “We're only in here because we're in a rush,” says the
father, much like a husband explaining a mistress to his incredulous wife.
“It's not normal. We would never eat in McDonald's usually.” He says that he
is from Montreal, anyway, and that we may refer to him only as Mr X. The
rest of the family stay silent, and munch, and blush.
This year, for the first time, McDonald's looks likely to make the bulk of its
earnings from outside the US. This has much to do with the French, and not
just with their eating. McDonald's in Europe has changed. Three years ago,
Denis Hennequin - president of the chain in Europe and a Frenchman -
embarked on a makeover of the Continent's outlets. Just outside Paris there
is now the McDonald's European design studio, which has created a variety of
theoretically upmarket restaurant templates.
“We have eight concepts at the moment,” says Stephen Douglas, implementation
director in the European design studio, “but none are France-specific.” They
are Quality, Eternity, Generation, Lim, and Pure and Simple, with three
variations thrown in to make up the eight. Some are intended to give a
business vibe, some are targeted at families. Eternity is the most
impressive and design-heavy. “It provides a fast-food environment that is
significantly different,” says Douglas, “inspired by an American
architectural heritage.” In other words, your average McDonald's no longer
looks like a crèche in a lunatic asylum on a cross- Channel ferry.
But it's not exactly a chic French bistro, either. And the food remains much
the same, in France or anywhere. There are different regional flourishes, to
be sure. You can drink your beer in France, although nobody except me seems
to bother. You can have your (photographer-derided) croque. Also, as you may
remember from Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction, what you call a
cheeseburger is known in these parts as a Royal Cheese, and your cheese is
the Alpine delicacy reblochon.
All of which might seem terribly exciting if you lived in, say, Stornoway. But
Paris? Part of the chain's success may be down to the way that France has
changed, and continues to change. In the British stereotype, the Frenchman -
banker or binman - takes a long lunch. He goes to the flawless restaurant
around the corner, sits down at his usual white-and-red-checked table,
undoes his top button and tucks in. He starts with a baguette, he orders a
bottle of red wine. Two, maybe three hours later he finishes his cheese,
emits a discreet belch and settles the bill, which comes to about €3. Then
he gets back to work.
This is no longer true. Or at least, it is no longer entirely true. As the
French have begun to adopt Anglo-American working practices, they have also
begun to adopt Anglo-American eating practices. One oft-quoted statistic is
that the length of the average French meal has fallen from 1 hour 22 minutes
in 1978 to a mere 38 minutes today.
To find out how they fill that 38 minutes we head to the 9th arrondissement,
an area full of offices and office workers, evidently requiring a
considerable number of lunches each day. The streets here are relatively
narrow and the buildings relatively high, but flat-fronted and
wood-shuttered in that very Parisian way. At street level, everything is
food: Pizza Venezia, Café la Roseraie, quite a few McDonald's, too. We pass
one with a super-fast takeaway hatch, like a walk-thru drive-thru. It is
next door to a gym.
Aside from the many McDonald's, we are told, the big change around here is
that an awful lot of these little cafés don't have much room to sit. You are
not expected to sit. You are expected to grab your food and go away. Like an
American. Or, worse, like a Brit.
Typical of these new places is the shorthand-unfriendly
CinQfrUitSetLeGumEScHaQueJoUr. That is to say, “five fruits and five
vegetables each day” but with the words all run together and capitals
applied with wild Gallic abandon. Fast food or not, the vibe here is all
about health.
“Our typical clientele is businessmen. A lot of creative types,” says Robert
Renaud, 47, who is the co-owner and knows everybody who so much as wanders
past the window. “The women love it: they are much more up for trying
something new. The men just want ham and cheese baguettes.”
Robert agrees that Parisian life has changed. People have a quick lunch so
that they can leave earlier and have a longer dinner. It's not that they are
no longer interested in savouring mealtimes, he says, just that they are
favouring one over the other. “Most people are between the ages of 30 and
35,” he adds. “The old people don't like the idea of takeaway so much.”
Philippe, 35, is one of his last customers and has grabbed something involving
salad and goat's cheese. He agrees that people no longer have the time for a
long lunch, but takes a more complex view on senior resistance.
“The French do not disapprove of fast food as a meal,” he insists. “What is
wrong is to eat between meals. It is the mealtime that is sacred, not the
type of food. When your Lord Sandwich invented the sandwich, he did so to
eat without stopping. This is not French.”
True enough, even when the French visit McDonald's, they do so differently.
They are more likely to visit as a family event, much like our “Canadian”
family above. A French McDonald's is busy on a weekday lunchtime but busier
still at the weekend. Here, in the birthplace of the Michelin guide,
McDonald's is considered a treat. It's enough to make you weep.
Healthy fast food is something new. Unsurprisingly, panting hard on the heels
of a convenience food culture comes the chubby spectre of obesity. French
obesity rates have rocketed in recent years. According to estimates, 11 per
cent of the French are obese and 40 per cent are overweight. This is better
than the UK or the US, but it grows by about 5 per cent every year. One
thinks of those previously untouched indigenous tribes that manage to wipe
themselves out in a generation after being introduced to booze. The French
are failing to eat in moderation. For a culture that prides itself on its
waistline, this is a difficult failing to accept. Only a few years ago,
remember, there was a bestselling diet book called French Women Don't Get
Fat. But they do.
Not before time, the French seem to be wising up. In recent years, at least in
Paris, there has been a boom in fast-food eateries of the sort described
above. The pioneer in this respect is a newish chain called Cojean. It was
set up in 2001 by Alain Cojean, who had spent the previous 15 years working
in research and development for - yes - McDonald's. Cojean is a very
different beast.
We visit the branch across the road from the Louvre. Cool and airy, it is
tastefully converted from an elaborately corniced patisserie. It sells fresh
salads, proper coffee and sandwiches that are resolutely not triangular. We
pick a ham and melon salad with noodles and rocket. The melon tastes as if
it has just fallen from a tree, and the ham just scraped from a happy pig.
There is a surprise bit of jagged plastic lurking in the middle, true
enough, but we are not in McDonald's so we have no urge to sue. It just adds
to the sense of handmade authenticity.
At the next table we find Johan, Gilles and Caroline, all groomed, trendy and
in their twenties. Johan works in an office near by. The other two are
students. They eat, they debate. It is all very French.
“It's not too embarrassing to go to McDonald's. Although I wouldn't go often.”
“Not more than three or four times a month.”
“No. And I don't think of the burger as being part of an invasion of American
culture, or anything like that. Burgers generally are much better quality
than they used to be. There is a tendency to eat better. More healthily.”
“This stuff is much better than McDonald's. It's really good. I'm not ashamed
to be here at all.”
If only Cojean would cross the Channel. Everything looks wonderful, and at
only €6 a pop. This place is to Pret A Manger what the Eiffel Tower is to
the Blackpool Tower.
Even with takeaway food, the French are deeply reluctant to eat at their
desks. They prefer to hang around in the office kitchen or sit in a communal
area. The food may have changed but the concept of lunch remains so
ingrained in French life that none of the many diners we meet bothers to
mention what, for a Brit, is the most striking French culinary fact of all:
they don't pay for their lunch. Their employer does. Mais oui. Bien sur.
The French economy may be Anglofying at a rapid rate but, for now, the ticket
restaurant survives more or less intact. This is a voucher, normally for
between €6 and €12, which every employer provides every day, by law, and
which may be spent only on lunch. So you have to go out for lunch. You are
being paid to go out for lunch. It is the rules. The French take the ticket
restaurant for granted to such an extent that they barely notice it.
Most would probably be appalled to realise that the system actually
originated, like the sandwich, in Britain. Virtually forgotten about here,
they generate heavy tax breaks for employers in France and are often
credited with sustaining the French restaurant industry. And, in these
troubled times, they could provide a clue to the French fast-food boom.
Whereas €10 will pay for only two thirds of your plat du jour, it will pay
for your whole takeaway.
Or a meal for two in McDonald's. Not, of course, that we have yet found
anybody French who is prepared to admit that the macdoh is their lunch-spot
of choice. Around the corner, on Rue La Fayette, we try once more.
Dareth, 33, works in property. “This burger is disgusting,” he admits. “Every
couple of months I get a craving. It's a chemical thing, I think. I don't
even work near here. I just came for the McDonald's. I had to.”
And does this embarrass him, as a Frenchman?
“I wouldn't know,” shrugs Dareth. “I'm from Switzerland.”
Additional reporting by Francesca Steele
Burger culture clash
(from Pulp Fiction)
Jules: You know what they call a Quarter Pounder with cheese in France?
Brett: No.
Jules: Tell 'em, Vincent.
Vincent: A Royale with cheese.
Jules: A Royale with cheese! You know why they call it that?
Brett: Because of the metric system?
Jules: Check out the big brain on Brett! You're a smart motherf***er.
That's right. The metric system.
Designer burgers
The best in the UK
A marked trend in recent years has been the rise of the “posh” burger. Madonna
offered guests at her 50th birthday bash kosher-prepared Wagyu beef burgers,
and chains such as the Gourmet Burger Kitchen are doing a roaring trade in
burgers made from Aberdeen Angus beef or even organic wild boar, trading on
the fact that, while we all want to be healthier, sometimes only a slab of
meat in a bun will do. Here are some of those whetting the UK's appetite for
wholesome fast food.
Gourmet Burger Kitchen
A chain with locations across the UK (www.gbkinfo.com)
Woodies Diner
366 Kingsway, Brighton BN3 4QT (01273 430300)
Eagle Bar Diner
3-5 Rathbone Place, London W1 (020-7637 1418)
Haché
24 Inverness Street, Camden NW1 7HJ (020-7485 9100)
Vingt-Quatre
325 Fulham Road, SW10 9QL (020-7376 7224)
Relish
217 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1EP (0131 2258770)
River Bar & Grill
89 Victoria Street, Liverpool City Centre L1 6DG (0871 8114800)
Handmade Burger Company
Upper Mill Arcade, Touchwood, Birmingham (0121 7113004)
