Can't find your 650 million figure anywhere? 90 million tourists over the course of a year could easily consume 200 million meals though, doncha think? Your most recent link is from 2015...
Canuk wrote:Can't find your 650 million figure anywhere? 90 million tourists over the course of a year could easily consume 200 million meals though, doncha think? Your most recent link is from 2015...
C'mon stop the defender of the French belle vie bit. The French eat plenty of junk food. And from touring experience l think part of the reason McDonalds does well in France is that it is open. I have frequently ridden into a town late to find the only place open for food is McDonalds. And there are other fast food chains too; they don't all exist off tourists - often I've been in bits of France that are off the tourist route.
Canuk wrote:Can't find your 650 million figure anywhere? 90 million tourists over the course of a year could easily consume 200 million meals though, doncha think? Your most recent link is from 2015...
C'mon stop the defender of the French belle vie bit. The French eat plenty of junk food. And from touring experience l think part of the reason McDonalds does well in France is that it is open. I have frequently ridden into a town late to find the only place open for food is McDonalds. And there are other fast food chains too; they don't all exist off tourists - often I've been in bits of France that are off the tourist route.
McDo are in all bigger towns and you see evidence of this by the remains of their packaging tossed to the side of the road The young use them a fair bit but if you want to eat a decent meal, eat at lunchtime. Seek out a place that offers Menu ouvriers. You'll get decent food, often three courses for around 10-12€. The only other fast food on offer is pizza, they're everywhere and if a village doesn't have one (rare) then there is usually a pizza van that turns up in the square once or twice a week.
Can't find your 650 million figure anywhere? 90 million tourists over the course of a year could easily consume 200 million meals though, doncha think? Your most recent link is from 2015...
JUst look at ampa of where Mcdonalds are in France and then try and claim only tourists eat there. About 20 million visitors to France go to Ski resorts. The only French ski place where I've see a Mcd is Chamonix. EVen large resorts like Courchevel or Meribel don't have one. If what you say is correct ski resorts would be loused out with them. Have a look at this map of Mcdonald's locations in Northern France and then explain why all these locations are tourist hotspots.
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
Whenever we have been to foreign McDs it's locals using them. Most tourists on our touring trips prefer local food in the various, cheap Lunchtime menus. Experience the country and all that.
Also, in France the ones we saw tended to be filled with the same types of people as the UK. Chavs, tradesmen and more middle class families succumbing to kids pester power. Plus the one we actually went in was very busy and all French. I guess that's French tourists, right?
I used work for a week or two at a time in France in the 90s. My colleagues there usually went to the boulangerie or a cafeteria for lunch, but once per week, a group of them (5 or 6 engineers) went to McDonald's for lunch. I think that they started because they thought it was a bit funny and different, but it somehow became a regular thing. Some of the folks who worked in the workshop, there did something similar, though necessarily on the same days. McD's was a 5 minute walk away; closer by a couple of minutes than either the cafeteria or the boulangerie.
I never went with them. I didn't eat McD's in the US or UK. I certainly wasn't going to in France, when I could have a fresh baguette, instead.
As for Britain's most boring town.... why be so negative? Every place has its own character, we can hardly expect it to be the same from place to another. What one person finds boring, another finds comfortably familiar, and yet another finds cozy. I find the differences between one place and another interesting. A new town centre isn't interesting in the same way that a medieval town centre is, but that does not make it boring.
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.” ― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
Canuk wrote: Can't find your 650 million figure anywhere?
1.8 million McDonalds meals a day, try google.
Try posting a link that says 650 million meals served in France each year, because it didn't exist in any of your previous 5 years out of date references...
And another I've just read suggests 26% of French people eat McDs, plus anything from 15% to 6% eat at other popular fast food outlets (including Quick, KFC etc) which, even allowing for customers eating at more than one chain, must mean at least a third of French people eat fast food.
Canuk wrote: Can't find your 650 million figure anywhere?
1.8 million McDonalds meals a day, try google.
Try posting a link that says 650 million meals served in France each year, because it didn't exist in any of your previous 5 years out of date references...
It is worth pointing out that all meat used by McDonald's is pure skeletal muscle - of good quality and produced to high standards. The idea of "pink slime" (mechanically reclaimed meat), beaks, feet, tongues and offal finding their way into such food is quite wrong. McDonald's's buyers are extremely stringent. I have no connection to the company, but I have worked in the meat industry. I would have no problem eating McDonald's regularly if the meat used was the single consideration: The (added) fat, sugar and so-on which makes the food so unhealthy is what stops me.
If you want a boring town, try any German town with a population of less than 50,000 on a Sunday. Cyril Haearn mentioned Alresford; I have a house nearby and spend as much time there as possible (sadly only a few months a year). It is a charming place and I like it very much. So one man's boring town is another man's idyll. Living in a large European capital, wading through broken glass and dog mess, and fending off a thousand panhandlers can get tiresome.
