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What the ‘great Nutella riots’ of 2018 tell us about the French

What do the viral images of shoppers in France battling to get their hands on pots of Nutella tell us? Not only that the French are nuts for the spread but also that they can still surprise us...and even themselves.

Published: 26 January 2018 11:47 CET
What the 'great Nutella riots' of 2018 tell us about the French
Photo: AFP
France's love affair with the Italian chocolate hazelnut spread Nutella is well-known and if anyone was in any doubt the so-called “riots”, as described by some French newspapers, seen at supermarkets across the country on Thursday proved it. 
 
And even though in reality it was more like a feeding frenzy than a riot, France's passion is in no doubt. 
 
In fact, according to some figures 26 percent of the world consumption of Nutella is done by the French even though the brand is Italian.
 
This means that around a whopping 75,000 tonnes of Nutella are consumed every year in France.
 
France's long love affair with the chocolate spread starts, for many, at childhood when it is the sweet and some say sickly breakfast of choice for many French school children.
 
And according to Paris food writer and author of the blog Chocolate & Zucchini Clotilde Dusoulier it could be this childhood link which is partly behind the France's love for Nutella. 
 

 
“French people eat it by the spoonful. I had it on toast for breakfast as a child,” Dusoulier told The Local. “And like with candy, grownups continue to eat it to connect with their inner child.”
 
The food writer also explained that the French have a tendency to turn to sweets in times of uncertainty. 
 
“Things are a bit better in France now but there's still a huge enthusiasm for pastry chefs” and “giving away this sweet childhood memory nearly for free is likely to bring up memories of sharing it with school friends, treats and other positive links,” she said.
 
Whatever the reason, the scenes at Intermarche supermarkets in France on Thursday were reminiscent of Black Friday bonanzas in the US with customers jostling, scuffling and battling each other to get their hands on the chocolate.
 
“They are like animals. A woman had her hair pulled, an elderly lady took a box on her head, another had a bloody hand. It was horrible,” one customer at the Rive-de-Gier supermarket in central France told Le Progres newspaper. 
 
And many people took to Twitter to show surprise about where this frenzy was happening. 
 
Indeed one Twitter user dubbed it “Brown Thursday” (see below). 
 
 
Sophie Chevalier, a French anthropologist and specialist in customer behaviour, said the scenes were out of the ordinary.
 
“These are unusual in France, except when there’s a particularly exceptional sale, and more what we see in developing countries or where there’s a regular shortage of essential products,” Chevalier told Le Parisien.
 
“Would there be the same reaction to jars of pickles? Certainly not. It’s a question of the kind of product that explains this. Nutella is pure pleasure for children and to offer it at a bargain price obviously attracts lots of customers.”
 
Still, although it may seem bizarre to many, it's nice to know the French can still surprise us from time to time. 
 
Let's leave the final word with French President Emmanuel Macron:
 
 

FOOD & DRINK

France’s national fast food: What exactly are ‘French tacos’?

If you're from the north American continent, you are probably familiar with the (traditionally Mexican) taco - but in France you will meet 'French tacos', a different beast entirely.

Published: 25 May 2023 13:42 CEST
France's national fast food: What exactly are 'French tacos'?

If you walk the streets of any French city or large town, you will likely stumble upon a fast-food restaurant called O’Tacos. But if you are expecting to be able to order a delicious Mexican al pastor taco with salsa verde, you will find yourself sorely disappointed.

As staff writer for the New Yorker, Lauren Collins wrote in 2021, “French tacos are tacos like chicken fingers are fingers”. In fact, one Mexican chef in Paris told Collins that she once had a customer “throw his order in the trash, saying it wasn’t a taco”.

French tacos (always spelled in the plural sense) are a popular and distinct fast food in France, often decried by health experts as highly caloric – an average French tacos clocks in at about 1,348 calories, and an XXL can run up to 2,300, above the recommended daily total caloric intake for an adult woman.

What many imagine when thinking of a taco is the traditional Mexican food, eaten by hand, which consists of a small corn or wheat tortilla filled with meat, beans and/or vegetables, topped with condiments like salsa or guacamole.

In contrast, the French taco is a flour tortilla filled with meat, sauce, and French fries, folded together and grilled to build a panini-burrito-kebab mélange. You can add plenty of other ingredients inside too – from cheese to turkey bacon. Most French tacos are halal-certified to accommodate Muslim customers – so do not contain pork.

The biggest chain is the strangely named O’Tacos – France is home to 300 O’Tacos restaurants – an amount that has doubled in the last five years, as French tacos continue to pick up popularity among the youth.

And you are not limited to O’Tacos for your French taco needs – plenty of smaller fast-food shops and chains across the country, particularly those selling kebabs and those that remain open late into the night – offer French tacos too.

The origins of French tacos

There are various claims regarding the origins of French tacos – or whether there is a single inventor of the fast food at all – but many point to the diverse suburbs of France’s gastronomy capital, Lyon. 

In a documentary by Bastien Gens, titled ‘Tacos Origins’, claimed that French fast food was created toward the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s in Lyon suburbs of Villeurbanne and Vaulx-en-Velin. 

According to Collins, the “earliest innovators of the French tacos were probably snack proprietors of North African descent in the Lyonnais suburbs.

However, some claim that the concept originated in Grenoble first, which is also the site of the first O’Tacos restaurant, opened in 2007 by a former construction worker, Patrick Pelonero, who told Collins he had never visited Mexico but simply enjoyed eating French tacos on his lunch breaks.

Tacos’ popularity 

One thing is certain – French tacos, typically priced around €5.50 are distinctly French.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Loïc Bienassis, a member of the European Institute of Food History and Cultures, said that: “For decades, France has been an inherently urban, industrial, and culturally diverse country. The French taco is a mutant product of this country. It is its own national junk food.”

In the past few years, French tacos’ popularity has spread beyond the l’Hexagone – to Morocco, Belgium and even the United States.

The sandwich has become so trendy in France that some even refer to traditional Mexican tacos as a “taco mexicain” to differentiate between the two.

In 2021, over 80 million French tacos were consumed in France, making it more popular than the hamburger and the kebab.

In the same year, French youth also took to social media, joining in an O’Tacos challenge #Gigatacos. The goal was to consume a giant French tacos, weighing in at 2kg. Anyone who succeeded would be automatically refunded. Videos of the challenge coursed through French social media networks, with several million views.

While France is known for its classic cuisine, which relies heavily on fresh ingredients, the country also has a history of loving fast food, so it may come as little surprise that it would invent its own highly caloric dish.

As of 2019, France was home to the second biggest market for McDonald’s per head of population after the United States. 

READ MORE: Krispy Kreme, Popeyes, Five Guys: the American fast-food chains taking on France

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