Sometimes browsing the business news we can find some priceless article. On LeMonde.fr I found this article about the well known Brand McDonald’s (McDo for the Frenchies) featuring a map representing of all the 13 000 restaurants in the United States.

But for me the best part was the info about the Chain in France. I did not know that my country was the second largest market worldwide for McDonald’s with more than 1200 restaurants after 30 years of presence on the territory. Indeed France is supposed to disregard fast food and more broadly everything coming from the US, with an unlimited pride. Moreover, my textbook for the Class of Marketing Management in a Global Envrionment has a picture of Jose Bove with the caption about the ransacking of a McDo in France, illustrating the political risk to assess for the Country Attractiveness. We may still notice that in Corse (the Island in the Mediterranean Sea in the south of France) there is no McDonald’s at all, officially ”Because of logistic issues”, but everyone knows that because of the important amount of local terrorism and independence movements on this Island this is not the best climate for the implantation of a Global Brand…

One of the reason why McDonald’s is so popular in France (despite the higher Big Mac Price on the Economist’s Big Mac Index) may be the higher quality of the sandwich. One of the main reasons may be the importance of the selection of the suppliers, especially according to the country of origin of the meat. Another one is the diversity of the sandwiches adapted to the local tastes and the seasons.

Some of my favorite seasonal burgers of all time (I must confess that I was addicted to McDonald’s) were:

• The 280, featuring 280g of beef meat (0.7 pounds) in a smooth ciabatta bread. I am still debating with myself about which one I preferred, the Original or the Au Poivre…
• The Raclette with Raclette cheese, bacon, lardon (small dices of bacon), cheese sauce and even more cheese, and grated cheese on the top
• The Big Tasty, supposed to remind us of the original country of McDonald’s, featuring a secret sauce with smoked taste, and bacons.