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'We can't have scenes like this in France': French government gets tough after 'Nutella riots'

The Local/AFP
The Local/AFP - [email protected]
'We can't have scenes like this in France': French government gets tough after 'Nutella riots'
AFP

The French government has moved to stamp out recent scenes of shoppers battling to get their hands of discounted goods such as Nutella by unveiling a new law to tighten rules on supermarket promotions.

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The French government has implored supermarkets to refrain from the kind of promotion deals that have led to in-store scuffles over cut-price jars of Nutella and discounted nappies, the finance minister said Wednesday.

Videos of French shoppers jostling as they tried to grab heavily discounted tubs of the chocolate spread in Intermarche stores have gone viral over the past week.

"I met with the director of Intermarche yesterday," Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said, as his government prepared to unveil a bill later Wednesday that will tighten rules on supermarket promotions.

"I told him that this must be stopped -- we can't have scenes like this every few days in France," Le Maire told RTL radio.

Intermarche sparked the shopping frenzy last Thursday when it slashed the price of a 950-gram (2-pound) pot of Nutella -- a favoured breakfast spread in France -- from 4.50 euros ($5.60) to 1.41 euros.

The three-day promotion prompted shoving and even full-blown fights in several stores, with one worker likening the scenes to "an orgy".

In scenes reminiscent of Black Friday bonanzas in the US, images and videos posted on social media showed customers jostling, scuffling and battling each other to get their hands on pots of Nutella in supermarkets around the country.

"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.
 
 
Intermarche apologised to customers, but it has since continued with aggressive discounts on coffee and nappies, which have also sparked scenes of hysteria.

“It was horrible. It was out of control. Around 250 people were there when the shop opened, just to buy the nappies. Women were fighting each other” the store manager told the Republicain Lorraine newspaper.

“We had to call the police - the staff members were overwhelmed.”

The DGCCRF consumer agency on Monday announced it was launching an investigation into the discounts.

Le Maire urged Intermarche to "stop this kind of promotion", saying that the pushing and shoving seen as customers clamoured to get their hands on the Nutella tubs must not become "normalised".

He reminded Intermarche's management that like other supermarket chains, it had already "signed a deal to no longer carry out these kind of promotions. They must keep their word."

Videos of the shopping frenzy have been shared thousands of times on social media, with comedian Anthony Joubert racking up 700,000 plays on a song featuring the lyrics, "A euro for Nutella, I'd kill a mother or father for that."

Ferrero, the Italian company that makes Nutella, said the discount decision was taken "unilaterally" by Intermarche and risked creating "confusion and disappointment" for consumers.

READ ALSO: What the 2018 great Nutella riots tell us about the French

What the 'great Nutella riots' of 2018 tell us about the French

 

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