With a squashed clementine under his foot and carrots whizzing past his nose, the head of security could contain himself no longer.

“Look at the mess,” he yelled. “Get out of here at once.” His words were lost on the picnickers responsible for the pandemonium.

They were activists linked to an insurrectional Left that has long been part of France’s political culture, but which has been given an undreamt-of boost by the economic crisis.

In a Carrefour hypermarket in Créteil, west of Paris, they were protesting against rising food prices and what they claimed to be the exorbitant profits of the retail trade.

An improvised picnic had been set up on ironing tables between the flowers and the frozen food.

“Help yourselves,” shouted Victor Porcel, 34, an underemployed cinema technician, as he handed out fruit, crisps, cheese, orange juice and other products taken from the supermarket shelves.

Carrefour’s security team arrived within minutes, but when their head tried to intervene he was greeted with boos and a hail of carrots.

Red-faced with rage, he ordered the removal of the picnic. This provoked a strange tug-of-war, with guards pulling the ironing boards one way and the thirty or so activists heaving them the other.

It ended with all the food on the floor.

“That’s your fault,” said the by-now apoplectic head of security as he tugged nervously at his moustache and surveyed the chaos.

“No, it’s yours,” replied one of the protesters.

A large crowd of shoppers had been drawn by the raised voices and the mêlée of staff, demonstrators and cameramen.

Some were bewildered. “Is this a promotional event for Danone?” asked a middle-aged woman in a brown fur coat as she sipped a glass of Danao, a drink made by the French food group. “Why’s the supermarket trying to stop it?”

Grégory, 37, who was buying champagne and other provisions for Christmas, studied a brochure distributed by the demonstrators that called for “popular control of big retail groups” and a €300 (£250) pay rise for all workers. “What they’re doing is theft,” he said. “I’ve got no time for them at all. They complain that Carrefour’s making a profit, but there’s nothing wrong with that. It would be worse for everyone if it were losing money.”

In many countries, Grégory’s opinions would probably find a broad echo, while the nonviolent revolution backed by the far Left and Olivier Besancenot, its Trotskyist leader, would be dismissed as a dangerous illusion.

But in Créteil, and much of France, many people view the activists as latterday Robin Hoods, and Mr Besancenot as a welcome political force capable of overturning a festering system.

Christine, a mother of two, said as her daughter, 4½, finished a strawberry yoghurt drink: “I’m totally in favour of what they’re doing.”

She said that her husband’s take-home salary of €1,200 a month was insufficient to pay food and other bills.

“The rent’s €600 and last month we couldn’t afford it,” she said. “We need more stunts like this so that our political leaders realise just what life is like for ordinary people.”

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