A Starbucks in Paris? Mercy! or rather, Merci!
January 16, 2004 - Seattle Post-Intelligencer
PARIS - Nothing could be more French than sitting outside a Parisian cafe sipping a tiny espresso and watching the world go by. Nothing could be more American than grabbing a large to-go cup at Starbucks on the way to work.
What happens when the Seattle coffee juggernaut decides to set up shop on the streets of Paris? While it may not be the cultural collision some people envision, few here think it will be as successful as it is in the United States.
Least excited about the coffee giant’s arrival in France are some of the American expatriates living in Paris.
“This culture’s already becoming too Americanized - it’s not a good thing in my opinion,” said Kyle Weinandy, a one-time resident of Bellingham.
“The world has already gotten too small, and I’m not excited to see Starbucks popping up all over the place here,” the nine-year Paris resident said.
Indeed, as if in anticipation of this sentiment from the French and those who live in their country, Starbucks has made little splash over its new entry, other than a September news release announcing the Paris opening “in early 2004,” and the construction of the store on Avenue de l’Opera in the heart of Paris.
All requests for interviews with the company in the week leading up to yesterday morning’s news conference were denied. Yesterday, when Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz finally addressed a Parisian audience at his new store, it was with the brashness some Europeans expect of Americans.
“We are American, but we are extremely respectful of you as a people,” he said in his pre-opening speech.
Starbucks may be hoping to avoid the culture clash that McDonald’s experienced in France. Seen as a cultural homogenizer and culinary backwater in the land of high culture and haute cuisine, the Golden Arches experienced such a backlash that farmer Jose Bove became a national hero after he drove his tractor through the front of a McDonald’s.
Asked about that yesterday, Schultz said, “Starbucks is a company, not a political concern.
“Coming into any new place - any market - you have to demonstrate a general sensitivity to the local market. When people get to know us, the question becomes subordinate to the relationship with the customer.”
With its first two stores in France opening on tourist-heavy Avenue de l’Opera and in La Defense - the business district to the west of the city - it appears that Starbucks may target these two groups instead of focusing on the typical Parisian cafegoer.
The stereotypical Parisian cafe differs greatly from the typical Starbucks. The Parisian cafe functions as a place to catch up with the locals over a tiny espresso, and many offer services such as selling stamps, cigarettes, Metro passes and even lottery tickets. Such shops also function as what Americans would call a bar.
The French perception of Starbucks comes largely from American movies and TV series where large paper cups are taken to go. It’s a concept as foreign to the French as the large, American-style cups of coffee that they call jus de chaussette - “sock juice.”
Anne Bory and Claire Chaudiere are part owners of a typical Parisian cafe, Le Rendez-Vous des Amis, but they’re looking forward to checking out Starbucks’ offerings in Paris, where the American company plans about 10 stores this year.
With the coffee chain’s slicker image and big to-go cups, they aren’t immediately worried about their tiny cafe’s turf being taken over.
But they say their tone - and the overall French tone - would change if there were suddenly 50 Starbucks in Paris. With more than 380 stores in England, 28 in Germany and 20 in Spain, Starbucks has demonstrated its ability to expand where it finds success.
“We’re not coming in here assuming we’re going to be successful,” Schultz said. “We have to earn the loyalty of the French customer. We are coming here in a very humble way.”
Small and humble would be just fine with Bory and Chaudiere.
“If they’re in all the quarters, that changes things,” said Bory.
“I’d rebel against it,” said Chaudiere. “There’d be protests. The rest of the country would protest or they wouldn’t go - it’s not that charming.”
Sociologist Rene Peron is a specialist in commerce in urban areas at France’s public scientific research organization, the CNRS. He is working on a book on how large retailers establish themselves in cities and suggests the possibility of a curious cultural and economic backlash.
“If people perceive it as a threat, they may reject the newcomer and cling more tightly to their typical Parisian cafe,” he said.
Peron cites the opening of McDonald’s in France as an example that pushed many French to rediscover classic French food. “There’s even a weekend talk show on French food that came into being as a result.”
“McDonald’s success also pushed more typical French places to offer McDonald’s-style offerings,” said Peron. “Restaurants started offering rapid, inexpensive prix fixe menus, and crepe stands started proliferating.”
“Opening a Starbucks in France is like trying to open a Pizza Hut in Italy,” concluded Weinandy. “There’s already a coffee culture here. I don’t think we’ll see the French jumping up and down to go there - it’ll take a long time to get it into the French vocabulary.”
Joe Ray is a free-lance journalist based in Paris.
