Just when France appeared to be weaseling its way out diplomatic trouble with China, they've gone and landed themselves in the merde again. Yesterday, Nicolas Sarkozy invited Chinese athlete Jin Jing back to Paris to make amends for how she was treated during protests at the Olympic Torch Relay. Today, the mayor of Paris decided to offer honorary citizenship to the Dalai Lama. Sacre blue!
For a brief spell yesterday evening, plans to boycott French companies and hold protests outside Carrefour on May 1 were quite likely being reconsidered.
Now the Paris city council, led by Mayor Bertrand Delanoe's Socialists and the Green Party, have given China the two fingers - much to the despair of Sarkozy's chums in the conservative UMP which voted against the motion.
Beijing called this 'another grave provocation'.
However, the boycott of Carrefour is likely to hurt China as much as France, given that 99% of its employees here are Chinese and 95% of its products are made locally.
China has been harping on for weeks about how boycotts don't work. Perhaps that only applies to the Olympics...
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