Kärcher Reminds French: We Clean Dirt, Not Ghettos.
PARIS, April 19 — There is one French company that is tired of free publicity.
It is Kärcher, which makes high-pressure washers used to clean dirt, graffiti and wear from building façades. Its products cleaned Mount Rushmore.
But “to Kärcher” has become a French political verb with explosive content. The leading presidential candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, coined the term two years ago when he went to the immigrant suburb of La Courneuve after a boy was killed by a stray bullet, and said he would clean out troublemakers there “with a Kärcher.” Mr. Sarkozy’s opponent on the far-right, Jean-Marie Le Pen, responded during a stop in the suburb of Argenteuil last week. “If some want to Kärcher-ize you, to exclude you, we want to help you get out of these ghettos,” he told people there.
All this is too much for Kärcher France, a subsidiary of a 70-year-old family-owned German company, which does not want to become a metaphor for quelling gangs in suburbs populated by immigrants of African origin. “We wanted to remind people that we’re a family company, with well-entrenched values, that didn’t match these comments,” said Patrice Anderouard, the spokesman for Kärcher France.
The company has sent letters to all 12 presidential candidates and other politicians, asking them not to use the brand name. It has also run ads in newspapers stating that the company “cannot recognize itself in the recent words and confusion to which its name has been associated.”
Mr. Sarkozy’s office said it had no comment on the company’s statements. The company’s sales in France were up in 2006, and worldwide revenue jumped 13 percent, Mr. Anderouard said. “Our customers can put things into perspective,” he said. “But what interested us here was to speak up about our values, and to remove our products from this political sphere.”
2 comments:
Bien malin sera qui attirera Bayrou sans trop le montrer!
Et si les Français saisissaient enfin “LA chance Ségo”?
Bravo à Bayrou qui fait 3 fois son volume en près de 5 ans!
Son “nouveau parti Démocratie-sociale” prendra vite le jour et briguera largement les législatives et peut-être un confortable marocain chez…Ségolène!
Ce que je sais, c'est que beaucoup de maghrébins ont votés bayrou .
Sarko récupère un max de voix du front national grâce a ce mot karcher . Ce n'est pas le seul mot utilisé, il a aussi parlé des moutons égorgés dans les baignoires . Noel mamere député vert la lancé a la figure de rachida daty porte parole de sarko . Elle à répondu que ça existait et que cette expression ne faisait pas de sarko un rasciste .Rachida est une fille de mon coin, je ne la connais pas perso mais je connais bien ses frères . je ne pense pas qu'elle soit seule a soutenir sarko, il ya aussi d'autres maghrébins qui se sont illustrés de cette manière . Lorsque le maghrébin devient français, il se sent beaucoup plus proche de la droite que de la gauche .Alors qu'avant l'obtention de la nationalité, il est pro socialiste . Mais ce sont ces mots karcher et racailles ainsi que ses positions sur la politique étrangère qui font que beaucoup se reporte sur bayrou .
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