A television campaign by the French Ecological Transition Agency against consumerism has sparked an outcry from traders, welcomed on the contrary by environmentalists as the holidays, the traditional high mass of consumption, approach.
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In one of these television spots from the agency (Ademe), a man holds two promotional polo shirts and sizes them up, perplexed. He hails a salesman. “Which one would you take?” “Honestly? Neither” replies the man, who wears a “dealer” badge.
On the eve of the official launch of Black Friday, the flagship moment for consumption at discounted prices, the campaign did not at all make merchants laugh, who fear an impact on their sales during the crucial end-of-year period.
It is available in several spots, where we see consumers stopping in their tracks in their purchases of new products in household appliances and DIY stores or even on online sites.
“We are asking Ademe for its immediate withdrawal, failing which we will consider legal action for commercial denigration,” announced the Alliance du Commerce, the Union des Industries Textiles (UIT) and the Union française des industries Mode and Clothing (UFIMH) in a joint press release.
The media representative of the leader of supermarkets in France Michel-Edouard Leclerc criticized X for “misplaced advertising when the French textile sector is in decline”. “We can surely get people to adhere to a policy of sobriety without snubbing professionals,” he judged.
On Thursday, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire judged the campaign “clumsy” with regard to “commerce, especially physical commerce”.
But Christophe Béchu, Minister of Ecological Transition, refused to remove the spots, “assuming” their broadcast.
“That 0.2% of advertising airtime is devoted to asking whether all purchases are useful, frankly, given the challenges of ecological transition, that does not seem unreasonable,” he argued on France Inter.
“We should have targeted online sales platforms rather than physical stores with the same message,” he nevertheless conceded.
France Nature Environnement for its part “congratulated” Ademe, and Mouvement Impact France, which brings together entrepreneurs in the social and solidarity economy, welcomed “awareness raising necessary to transform our model”.
“Sobriety is not only the sine qua non condition for achieving our environmental objectives, but also a common sense approach for our economy and our traders,” said the movement.