France decided to "seduce" foreign consumers with stories about gastronomy
In 2018, a few days before the economic forum in Davos, President Macron invited global business leaders to Versailles. The business summit, dedicated to increasing the investment attractiveness of the French Republic, was called "Choose France." In continuation of this "seduction operation," as the forum is called in French, in July 2020 the Ministry of Agriculture launched the online media outlet TasteFrance.com.
As RFI notes, the project is aimed at foreign readers – besides French, it was immediately released in several languages, the list of which is constantly growing – English (in two versions, British and American), German, Japanese, and Chinese (as an app). A Spanish-language version is being prepared.
As project coordinator Maxime Cambien explained, all language versions differ from each other. "About 60 percent of the content is created in France, and the rest in the country where our reader lives. They will find addresses of restaurants and stores that carry French products, and read materials about local chefs who prepare them."
Another section claims that "you don't have to be a chef to cook French." Here you can find recipes of French cuisine, as well as useful tips on pairing French products with local ones. "We publish about twenty pieces a month," continues Maxime Cambien.
The main consumers of French products are Germany, Canada, China, the UAE, the USA, Japan, Hong Kong, and the UK. According to data from the agency Sopexa, which oversees the project, French products attract primarily with their sophistication and quality, as well as authenticity and diversity.
Foreign lovers of French products prefer to eat them at home, with family, rather than in a restaurant. The most popular are French bread, pastries, cheese, dairy products, and wine. They are among the products that appeared on the tables of respondents in the last six months. They are mainly bought in supermarkets, with online shopping sites in second place (in China, first).
The main source of information about French cuisine is the internet. Taste France hopes to carve out its niche on social networks – besides pages on Instagram and Facebook, the magazine exists on Pinterest and YouTube.
Taste France is not the first weapon of French gastro-diplomacy in history. Since 2010, the French gastronomic meal has been on UNESCO's list of intangible heritage, and since 2015, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs has organized an international flash mob called Gout de France (GoodFrance). Thousands of restaurants on five continents on the same day prepare a dinner in the traditions of the French meal, combining French products with local ones.
France is the birthplace of gastro-diplomacy. The chef of Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs under three regimes, was the great Antonin Carême, founder of French gastronomy, "cook of kings and king of cooks." Talleyrand entrusted him, in particular, with the difficult task of organizing a dinner for Emperor Alexander I in 1814, during the signing of the capitulation of Paris. A few months before the Congress of Vienna, he also organized many "ambassadorial dinners," which served as negotiation platforms for discussing more favorable terms for France to end the Napoleonic wars. And one of the greatest diplomats of Louis XIV, author of a classic work on the rules of diplomacy, François de Callières wrote: "If an ambassador is appointed to a popular republic, he must keep a generous table to attract deputies."
The term "gastro-diplomacy" first appeared in 2002 in The Economist magazine; since then, many universities, starting with American ones, have opened master's programs that include this subject as one of the core ones. The study of gastronomic traditions allows future diplomats and political scientists to better understand the mentality of the country that is the subject of their research.