French Café vs. Starbucks in France

By Claire Kim

One summer day, after looking around Pompidou center in Paris, I was walking around. At every corner of the building, there is café or restaurant and all tables and chairs turned toward the street. Even in some cafés, chairs were fixed on the ground of course, toward the street. All eyes are on people who walk down the street drinking coffee and Perrier. When I was in London before I visited Paris, I saw numerous Starbucks in London. However while I stayed in Paris for 4 days I saw only one Starbucks. There were no people carrying takeout paper cups in the busy subway and on the street as many people who love the Starbucks do in other parts of the world.

Starbucks, one of most global brands in the world now operates 12,440 international outlets from Vienna to Beijing. The coffee chain has created a “new café culture ” in the nations that don’t have such a culture, While it has invaded the ultimate café nation, France.

Starbucks, of course, has been successful in many places. But France isn’t just another country, and how the coffee chain can go in one of the world’s most traditional café cultures is anybody’s guess. A typical French café image is people drinking a dark espresso smoking cigarette or focusing their eye on street at a narrow sidewalk table. Starbucks’ cheerful atmosphere with jazz music, no-smoking policy and people who work with their laptop seems not really a match for the French.

 

The French, for all their love of cutting-edge clothes, food, and film, are a very conservative people with deeply held traditions. Furthermore, they are very confident of their own culture. In fact, Starbucks is so popular in the States. It’s become part of American culture. This is the reason that French don’t accept easily this globalized coffee chain unlike other countries such as the UK. They do not want France to be just like the rest of the world: with standardized disposable cups of coffee – identical in 12,000 branches around the world – even if they are termed handcrafted beverages. So the U.S. coffee chain has adjusted to local tastes. They sell not only American but also French-friendly snacks. And though the smoking rule is strictly upheld inside the stores, many of them provide some outer space seating where the French can happily enjoy a cigarette.

However, as previously stated, the French have their own traditional café culture and most of them believe that Starbucks will never replace their café. There is a huge history in Café society. In France, the Café has functioned as a public cultural place where people discuss social problems and have a reading meeting. All sorts of people like poets, artists, politicians and actress gather in cafés allowing all people to discuss equally. Also, various debates about “Art” which was familiar only with upper classes could be transferred to a theme of cultured ordinary people. Café is just a life for the French. They sit alone reading the newspaper, meeting their friends or lovers and look at people who walk down the street in front of you drinking a cup of espresso. You can see a café on every corner whether it is small or big in Paris.

According to the retail analyst firm Allegra, with slow and steady expansion over the next few years, Starbucks France could build up a nice business. They expect branded coffee chains to represent just 250 outlets by 2008 in France, compared with the 55,000 traditional cafés. These traditional cafés are changing so cultural interchanges are declining compared to the past, However, they still attract gatherings people. When it comes to coffee, at least, the French don’t have to worry about a U.S. cultural invasion.

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