France, signs of improvement.
Supersize ... moi? How the French learnt to love McDonald's - Times Online
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.
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.
My God, if they start washing as well they could become a serious competitor as Britain circles the plug hole.