Starbucks in Paris? What Would Sartre Say?

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Friday, January 23, 2004 | MATTHEW KAMINSKI

[presidio9]

Predictably, the graffiti artist didn't wait long. The bright green Starbucks advertising poster was defiled by black spray paint -- or embellished, depending on one's point of view -- hours after the maiden coffee shop opened here.

Over the past week, concerns about the arrival of the Seattle java giant filtered their way through the media. The usual French suspects talked about Simone and Jean-Paul and their smart set spinning in their graves at the sight of the latest American cultural invasion. And just how do we know Starbucks won't feed us American Frankenfood?

[presidio9]

[Atlantic Friend]

Hey, picture's NOT funny !!

Sartre would probably say : "What ? I can't smoke ?". Or maybe he would have abandoned philosophy and launch a new concept of philosophical coffee shops : the soon-to-be famous Sartrebuck's.

[sticker]

The french deserve Starbucks coffee

[sticker]

The french deserve Starbucks coffee

[pbear8]

"Is this the final fall of French civilization?" --No that occurred when they rejected God in 1789.

Starbucks!!! - Venti Chai, six pumps, no water. and a classic coffee cake.

[Rummyfan]

Quel fromage!

[presidio9]

Hey, picture's NOT funny !!

Why not?

[Gefreiter]

If French consumers don't want to go to Starbucks, then don't go to Starbucks for Chr***sakes. What the hell is so hard about that?

Is every new foreign thing- cafe, company, couture- cause for existential reflection and end-of-the-world handwringing in France? Or just American things?

[FeliciaCat]

I think the picture was taken when the Germans marched into Paris during WWII. Not a nice memory if your French.

[KantianBurke]

They should be more worried about the number of fundamentalist mosques going up rather than friggin Starbucks!

[sarasota]

Sartrebucks: brilliant!

[The Green Goblin]

What Would Sartre Say?

"There is no exit..."

[presidio9]

I think the picture was taken when the Germans marched into Paris during WWII. Not a nice memory if your French.

I think that it is a very telling picture. The French had no illusions about the Germans. They had been to war with them many times. In this picture we see at least two able-bodied Frenchmen who stand on the sidewalk and weep as they watch Germans invade Paris. I live in NYC. If an invading army was coming to rape my wife and daughters, I'd keep firing until I ran out of bullets. Surrender is not an option.

[katana]

"Existentialism was born in this room,"

Existentially speaking, they should burn the room out and sow the floor with salt. IMHO, Existentialism and its incestuous cousin Nihilism have robbed the European peoples of their balls.

On an individual level, these philosophies lead a serious believer to the conclusion that killing himself is the rational thing to do. Extend it to an entire nation or culture, and you have what is now happening to Europe, and in particular France, e.g. declining population and surrender to the barbarians in their midst.

[Atlantic Friend]

Oh, you know, we just have this Old-World feeling that the sight of our countrymen looking at a motorcade of Nazi panzer and SS divisions, after those divisions have defeated French troops and made 100,000 dead in 30 days of combat (among which a great-uncle of mine), is just NOT funny. Especially when those passers-by have fought in the trenches for four years in WWI and witnessed the death of 1.4 million comrades-in-arms. Just shrug it off as a French oddity.

[Atlantic Friend]

Well, I was lucky there. Imagine, if the article had been "What would Simone de Beauvoir say ?". But thanks nevertheless.

[presidio9]

Oh, you know, we just have this Old-World feeling that the sight of our countrymen looking at a motorcade of Nazi panzer and SS divisions, after those divisions have defeated French troops and made 100,000 dead in 30 days of combat (among which a great-uncle of mine), is just NOT funny. Especially when those passers-by have fought in the trenches for four years in WWI and witnessed the death of 1.4 million comrades-in-arms. Just shrug it off as a French oddity.

Maybe that's why you lose every war you get involved in. You are too introspective as a people. The Germans understood. You didn't.

This same attitude had you opposing our invasion of Iraq. We have people like you here too. They were the ones asking "Why do they hate us?" instead of "Where are they, and how do we kill them?"

[sarasota]

Amen, presidio9.

[Atlantic Friend]

Oh, jeez, yet another round of French-bashing ? Well, OK, bring it on...