Can a \'Buy French\' Campaign Save French Jobs?

LONDON - French consumers are being urged to choose products made in France as a patriotic response to the country's economic travails.

As part of a strategy to cut imports and boost national industry, the government is encouraging shoppers to read the label before they buy.

“ ‘Made in France' has never been so fashionable,” according to Le Nouvel Observateur's Challenges magazine in an article that coincided with the launch on Friday what is reportedly the first major exhibition showcasing “Buy in France.”

With the economy flagging, and hourly manufacturing costs 20 percent higher than the European average, President François Hollande and his administration have been pushing to boost domestic industry, the French news agency AFP reported as the show opened.

Last month, Arnaud Montebourg, the minister for industrial renewal, called for supermarket chains to introduce exclusive “Made in France” shelves in their stores.

Mr. Monteb ourg became the poster boy of the campaign when he posed for the Parisien magazine in a French-made matelot top, wearing a French-made watch and holding a French-made blender.

The French appear to like his idea. Seventy-eight percent of respondents told pollsters they backed the supermarket proposal and two-thirds said they would be prepared to pay more for an item made in France.

Appeals to patriotic consumerism are nothing new. The British government launched the first of periodic “Buy British” campaigns in 1931 in response to a balance of payments crisis.

And President Charles de Gaulle once urged the French to drink more milk and less wine, an initiative that rapidly sank without a trace.

Ed Miliband, Britain's Labour Party opposition leader, pushed a “Made in Britain” message in a speech in March in which he said: “We should not be embarrassed about the need for more patriotism in our economic policy.”

Conscious of the risk of a lienating voters, however, he assured British shoppers: “This is not about making consumers feel bad if they don't buy products from British business.”

In times of economic crisis, every little bit helps. But will these campaigns and others actually have an effect?

The report in Challenges cautioned that a ‘Made in France' label did not necessarily mean what it said. It carried no legal guarantee that a product was domestically produced.

Within the European Union, it noted, there is no obligation to specify the country of origin of anything other than food products.

Fabienne Delahaye, who is running the “Made in France” show, told the magazine: “There are always big brands who take advantage of the rules to give the impression their goods are made in France when they're actually made in China.” (And sometimes assembled in French.)

She was nevertheless backing the campaign “because you can't buy abroad and keep jobs in France.”< /p>

“Every year the country exports "350 millions worth of toys and imports "1.5 billion-worth,” she said. “We're impoverishing the country in order to give gifts to our children.”

Is patriotic consumerism an answer to Europe's problems or is it a political gimmick to show governments are doing something? And would you back similar campaigns in your own country? Let us know.