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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: CYBERKEN who wrote (393968)	4/17/2003 10:20:35 AM
From: JEB	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769669

Exporters suffer as America snubs Gallic goods From Adam Sage in Paris FRENCH business leaders have admitted for the first time that exports to the United States are falling after a boycott by American consumers angry at France’s opposition to the war in Iraq. Amid increasing concern that the boycott could inflict significant damage on the French economy, Ernest- Antoine Sellière, the head of Medef, the French employers’ federation, called on Americans to “keep buying our perfumes, our yoghurts and our aeroplanes”. He added that US citizens should vent their anger by writing to the French Embassy — sipping a glass of Bordeaux or Burgundy as they did so. Neither the employers nor the Government have published figures on the fall in exports, but M Sellière said: “Certain firms are suffering.” Economists say that emblematic Gallic products, notably wine and food, have been hit hardest after President Chirac’s attempts to block the military intervention in Iraq. Nicolas Gailly, the chairman of Barton et Gastier, a Bordeaux wine exporter, said: “American shops are reluctant to promote French bottles.” Guillaume Touton, a French wine merchant who is based in New York, said that his sales had fallen by 10 per cent over the past month. “Every week it gets worse. When is all this going to stop?” French wine exporters are meeting today to discuss what they describe as the “rather negative mood” in the US. Other sectors are also concerned. Shares in the French catering group, Sodexho, fell by 7.43 per cent last month after senators in Washington called for the cancellation of its $881 million (£557 million) contract to provide food for the US Marines. The contract was maintained after Sodexho pointed out that 40 per cent of its 314,000 workers were American. The US is France’s fifth-most important trading partner, taking 7.8 per cent of French exports at a value of $26 billion last year. At a time when French economic growth is slipping, Paris can ill-afford to marginalise itself in the American market, French business leaders say. timesonline.co.uk