Should We Boycott French Products?

Published on: March 1, 2003

Some people in the US, irritated that France has led opposition to US moves toward using military force to disarm Iraq, have called for a national boycott of French wine and cheese.

While we are sanguine about the likelihood that all these issues will be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction, we recognize that to many people, choosing what to buy and not buy can be a legitimate form of political protest; after all, for years people didn’t buy certain kinds of grapes to protest treatment of migrant workers in California.

Of course, there are extremes to some of the proposals; there is a difference between saying one will only buy domestic wine and cheese, and suggesting that French fries be renamed. (We didn’t make this last one up, folks. There is a restaurant in North Carolina now using the “freedom fries” moniker on its menu, and a county official in West Palm Beach, Fla., has requested a resolution that would change the name officially in the county.)

We wanted to know what you thought…and you told us.

There was broad support for the notion that political disagreements, like our dispute with France over its opposition to US moves toward using military force to disarm Iraq, ought to carry over to the free trade arena, with seven out of ten people supporting this approach.

Even more people – 74 percent of respondents – said that there ought to be a boycott of French-made products like wine and cheese by US consumers.

And finally, on the issue of so-called “freedom fries”…well, we threw this one in as sort of a joke. But apparently, the antipathy towards France at the moment runs deeper than we thought, with 53 percent of those responding saying that they thought renaming French fries sounded like a pretty good idea.

C'est la vie.

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