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Even with a major backlash from Americans upset by France’s refusal to cooperate in the recent war with Iraq, the Paris government is looking to double its exports to the United States as it decks the city in the U.S. stars and stripes for the Fourth of July.
“We want to increase our market share in [the United States] from 2.2 percent to 5.2 percent,” French Trade Minister Francois Loos told Le Figaro today.
But the commerce official admits that changing hearts is likely going to be an uphill battle.
“In consumer goods, which make up 10 percent of our sales in the United States, companies are talking with buyers from U.S. department stores, and the latter are reluctant to promote French goods,” Loos said.
France is hoping to bury the hatchet and repair the breach in relations as it decks the Champs Elys?es in American flags Friday in an unusual marking of U.S. Independence Day.
“It’s a symbolic gesture of friendship to show Americans that they are extra welcome in Paris this summer,” a tourism spokeswoman told the Scotsman.
 Paris looking for ‘l’amour’ among U.S. tourists |
U.S. tourists in Paris can expect to be offered free champagne and boxes of chocolates from hotels and restaurants as tokens of good will.
“We want to show Americans that we still consider them to be our friends, and that they will be well received despite the difference of opinion between our two countries over Iraq,” the spokeswoman said.
That difference of opinion is cited as the main reason for a huge drop in tourism to the city of lights, as American visitors to Paris plunged 27 percent in the first four months of 2003 compared to the same time period last year, and French exports dropped 21 percent, excluding military products.
And as WorldNetDaily reported, the rate of decline of French wine sales in America has been accelerating rather than letting up.
In response, the French have launched a marketing campaign called “Let’s Fall in Love Again,” hoping to lure Americans back.
Part of the effort is a video featuring filmmaker Woody Allen who professes his love for the country:
“I don’t want to have to refer to my french fry potatoes as freedom fries, and I don’t want to have to freedom kiss my wife, when I really want to French kiss her.”
The New York Times dubbed the promotion “a maladroit public relations campaign.”
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, a guest on Sean Hannity’s radio program today, was upbeat about the rift with France being healed.
“We have good relations with our European friends even though there was enormous disappointment with France and Germany [on Iraq],” Powell said. “But you know, there are ups and downs in any partnership in any alliance.”
Hannity, meanwhile, is slamming the French for hypocrisy over France’s call for U.S. military action to quell ongoing violence in the Liberian capital of Monrovia.
“There’s such duplicity here. It’s such a double-standard it’s unbelievable,” said Hannity.
“The only thing that’s different here is that I don’t see any oil contracts that the French or the Russians have with Liberia that they’re concerned about. I don’t know what the financial interests are. I don’t know what arms have been sold.”
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Angry American e-mails
invade Normandy
French wine sales continue to plummet
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