Boycott of french products spreads across Arab nations: More retailers join

Shopping centers and delivery apps across the Arab region are dropping French products from their catalog as #boycottfrance #boycottfrenchproducts campaign spreads across the region.  

The ever-growing boycott of french products is seen as a form of retaliation to French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent comments on Islam and the Muslim community, accusing Muslims of “separatism” and describing Islam as “a religion in crisis all over the world” during his much-anticipated speech after an incident where a man wounded two people outside the former Paris offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly which was condemned by the government as an act of “Islamist terrorism”.

Exhibiting its dissonance to the French President’s remarks Qatar University administration decided this week to postpone its French Cultural Week for an indefinite period of time.

Qatar’s Al Meera Consumer Goods Company extended its support to the cause by announcing that it has started withdrawing French products from its all branches immediately until further notice.

In Kuwait, one of the largest supermarket chains in the region, Alnaeem Cooperative Society said it will remove all French products from the shelves in protest of the incident. Alnaeem’s fellow traders Eqaila Cooperative Society, Suburb Afternoon Association, and Saad Al Abdallah City Cooperative Society have also shared images of their staff removing french products.

The list only gets longer in Qatar with Qatar Shopping Complex in Al Markhiya and Souq Al Baladi in Abu Hamour also making similar announcements. Regional delivery apps QTamween and Snoonu have also joined the campaign and begun removing french items from their websites and apps.

New Indian Supermarket, Retailmart Hypermarket, Family Food centre and Family Mart are all new names to the ever-growing list of organizations joining the protest in Qatar.