the video is no longer available.

Last Friday, as I took a cab with some colleagues from my CBD office to a nice hot pot place on Gui Jie, the first thing that the cab driver asked us when we got in the taxi was what country we were from – not such an unusual question – but it was what came next that surprised us, after establishing that none of us were from France, he unleashed a tirade against the French and the reception that the Olympic torch relay had received on the streets of Paris.

It seems this random driver is not the only one who's angry about the disruption of the Olympic torch relay, the above video (no longer available) shows a police officer trying to persuade a young woman who was holding up a sign outside the Baishiqiao Carrefour in Haidian District to find another method of protesting. The sign she is holding calls for truthful reporting and non-violence in English, Chinese and French and features an image of the torchbearer Jin Jing as the China Daily puts it "fiercely protecting the flame from attackers ... "

Carrefour has also become the focus of an online campaign calling for Chinese consumers to boycott French goods. The call to boycott French goods, and especially Carrefour, has spread through Chinese-language online forums and mobile phone messages and is now being reported about in the Chinese press.

It's hard to gauge how much popular support the call for a boycott has received. Although it seems that it's all the rage online – as of 11am this morning, NetEase reports that 92,947 votes had been cast in their online poll, with 94% responding positively to the question "Should we boycott French goods?" Still, it's easy to vote in an online poll and a little more difficult to actually get people to remember their anger next time they have to buy some toilet paper and cooking oil. In addition, the strong cultural links that have been forged between the two countries over many decades, seems to me to be stronger than a brief conflagration around the torch relay. The night before my ride in the taxi, I'd sat in a hall full of Chinese – many of them fluent in French – and French people at the opening ceremony of the French Panorama Film Festival. In addition to this, many of the great exhibitions and stage performances that are taking place as part of the ongoing Croisements Festival continue to attract large crowds.

Links and Sources
Youku: 白石桥MM抵制家乐福
Shanghaiist: Nationalist netizens call for boycott of Carrefour and other French brands
Danwei: Boycott
China Daily: Golden girl lifts a nation
The Beijing News: 网友抵制法货家乐福回应
NetEase: 想查找以前投票？有以下两种方式给你查询
The Beijinger Forum: The feelings of the Chinese people
The Beijinger Forum: Boycotting jia le fu in May
Tianya: 坚决抵制法国品牌
Carrefour Website