France Turning Its Back on 'Le Halloween'

Basically, it was cute, sort of something to waste one`s
time and money on, but not really French. One seller
said it had the "mode" attacked to it, meaning that
its popularity would pass.

Celtic music goes over better since Bretagne is
Celtic and the language is still spoken there.

Earl

****


France Turning Its Back on 'Le Halloween'

Fri Oct 31, 1:43 AM ET

Add Business - AP to My Yahoo!

By LAURENCE FROST, AP Business Writer

PARIS - Five years after it took France by storm in a whirlwind marketing
drive launched by a lone French entrepreneur, "Le Halloween" looks set to
perform its very own disappearing act.


Parties, pumpkins and Halloween bar promotions are still on offer Friday
night, but almost everyone agrees there's something missing this year.

The only people really spooked are retailers.

Arriving almost two decades after "trick-or-treat" entered popular
vocabulary in neighboring Britain, Halloween swiftly became a cash cow that
few French marketing directors could afford to miss.

But Richard Roizen, the businessman credited with importing the festival to
France, died earlier this year. Paris trend-watchers are predicting that
Halloween will be buried with him.

As chairman and chief executive of Cesar ‹ once a brand of masks worn to
19th century balls ‹ Roizen transformed the firm into the world's largest
costume maker with annual revenue of euro122 million ($142 million).

Attending Chicago's Halloween trade show, the annual gathering par
excellence for makers of creepy masks and rubber spiders, he quickly grasped
the potential for his home market.

"He struggled for years to bring Halloween to France," says Franck Matthais,
head of advertising for French toy store chain La Grande Recre.

Things took off in the autumn of 1998.

"We were in a euphoric mood because France had just won the soccer World
Cup," Matthais recalled. "Halloween worked very well indeed."

By 2000-2001, when it peaked, Coca Cola and mobile phone operator Orange had
jumped on the bandwagon ‹ even though their products have no obvious
connection to Halloween. Bakery windows were crammed with marzipan pumpkins
and spidery confections.

Since then, however, Halloween has had "less impact each year," Matthais
said in an interview. Last year, he spent euro150,000 ($175,000) on spooky
decorations for the toy chain's 86 outlets, as well as in-store face
painting for kids. And this year's budget?

"Zero," he said. "There are virtually no Halloween products in the shops."

The same goes for the Bakery Julien, near Paris's fashionable Champs
Elysees, where there is not a single pumpkin in sight.

Instead, its window is adorned with figurines of saints. All Saints' Day on
Saturday, and Sunday's Festival of the Dead, are major dates in the French
religious calendar.

"We're doing anti-Halloween," bakery owner Gontran Julien quipped.

Julien is not alone. Radio advertisements for Flunch, a fast food chain,
urge diners to "escape Halloween" by seeking refuge in their restaurants,
where they will instead be confronted with special menus celebrating the
"Ancient Gauls' New Year".

The chain is offering mead, a medieval alcoholic drink made from honey, for
diners to wash down large slabs of meat and other foods deemed authentically
Gaulish.

Flunch marketing director Sophie Gilleron said she felt the tide turn
against Halloween last year. "Besides, there are only so many things you can
do with pumpkin," she said.

Elsewhere the culture clash is more serious. French Catholic youth groups
plan to demonstrate for the second year running against what they see as
Halloween's trivialization of death.

Despite the omens, costume company Cesar insists Halloween, the source of 15
percent of its annual sales, will long outlive its late chairman ‹ mainly as
an event for children.

"The French market has moved away from the gory side, it's now more about
being 'scary but cute'," said marketing director Isabelle Geniez. "It's a
good compromise."

Nevertheless, the CREDOC ‹ a Paris-based sociological research institute ‹
says the writing is on the wall for Halloween.

Not only does Halloween seem to undermine the solemnity of Sunday's Festival
of the Dead, when some 9 million French people will visit relatives' graves,
it has also "failed to create any of its own traditions," CREDOC director
Robert Rochefort said.

"It was a fashion that worked very well," he said. "But it's become a victim
of its own commercialism."

On 31/10/03 19:10, in article , "Earl
Evleth" wrote:

Basically, it was cute, sort of something to waste one`s
time and money on, but not really French. One seller
said it had the "mode" attacked to it, meaning that
its popularity would pass.

Celtic music goes over better since Bretagne is
Celtic and the language is still spoken there.

Earl

****

We had quite a few kids round, and they also visited local shops where they
were well received. The kids were imaginatively outfitted and polite.
Obviously not Muslims.

J.

Earl Evleth writes:

Basically, it was cute, sort of something to waste one`s
time and money on, but not really French. One seller
said it had the "mode" attacked to it, meaning that
its popularity would pass.

Celtic music goes over better since Bretagne is
Celtic and the language is still spoken there.

This article is interesting--I was thinking this very evening that
Halloween doesn't seem to be nearly as popular as it was a year or two
ago. One year I recall seeing kids all over the place in costume, and
even some adults. The ones I saw today I could count on one hand.

Additionally, the stores are already rushing to put up Christmas
decorations. I guess Christmas is more of a sure thing than Halloween.

I understand some clubs are having "Halloween dances," though, something
that I don't ever recall encountering in the U.S.

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

"Earl Evleth" wrote in message
...
Basically, it was cute, sort of something to waste one`s
time and money on, but not really French. One seller
said it had the "mode" attacked to it, meaning that
its popularity would pass.

We were very surprised at the amount of halloween stuff on sale in the shops
whilst we were in Lyon last October. It seemed even bigger there than it is
here in the UK.

Maybe the UK will follow France's lead and it will eventually die out here
too, or is that just wishful thinking?

Elaine

Earl Evleth wrote:
France Turning Its Back on 'Le Halloween'

How sad. Too bad.

Hallwe'en is, and has always been, San Francisco's biggest party.

Tuesday's high temperature was a record-setting 93°F (I think) and I
said "I sure hope it's warm Friday evening". Well, not only was it not
warm this evening, it was very cold. Right now it's 47°F. I doubt if
it was much warmer at Midnight when we left Castro Street.

Tonight in Eureka Valley there must've been close to 200,000 people of
whom about 90% were made up, decorated, and/or costumed in some
manner. Although we visited none, I know that there were thousands
more on other neighborhood commercial streets in addition to Eureka
Valley's main drag, the Four- and Five-hundred blocks of Castro
Street. Polk Gulch and Broadway/Columbus (North Beach) usually have
great crowds as does Mission Street in several neighborhoods, Potrero
Avenue, San Bruno Avenue, Clement Street, Irving Street in at least
two neighborhoods, Taraval Street, Fillmore Street, Noriega Street,
Haight Street, Cole Street, Union Street (Cow Hollow), and perhaps a
few others. I doubt if there's a bar in town that didn't have a
"Hallowe'en Party". I have deliberately not named the beautiful
two-block long part of a street in which virtually all of the houses
get decorated and several have spectacular, magical, "shows" as one
passes. It's all designed for children but is a treat for "children of
all ages" as the RingMaster says.

I'm certain the low temperature, and bit of rain around 19:30 was the
reason the Castro Street show lacked the usual tits, dicks, ****s, and
asses. There were miles of cleavage, though, and many legs exposed by
garments cut very high.

As always, some of the costumes were wonderful works showing great
thought, creativity, and craftsmanship. There were a few gorgeous
queens in drag but most of the drag was whimsical or comic. There was
a couple, a giant penis and vagina, that we found delightful but at
least one young woman thought "disgusting". There was also a Fallopian
Swim Team.

We were there for about five hours, getting to see the children and
dogs in the early evening before the big crowds arrived around ten.

I've been spending Hallowe'ens on Castro Street since I was in the
Third Grade. The first time I went out in drag, in the '50s, was on
Castro Street. In those days, the gay neighborhoods were Polk Gulch
and North Beach although we had a gay couple for neighbors who are
probably dead now but had been together, then, for many years and
eventually celebrated being together for longer than 50 years.

If you have only one day to spend in San Francisco, Hallowe'en is the
day to do so.
__________________________________________________ __________
A San Franciscan in (where else?) San Francisco
http://geocities.com/dancefest/ http://geocities.com/iconoc/
ICQ: http://wwp.mirabilis.com/19098103 IClast at SFbay Net

Elaine schrieb:

"Earl Evleth" wrote in message
...
Basically, it was cute, sort of something to waste one`s
time and money on, but not really French. One seller
said it had the "mode" attacked to it, meaning that
its popularity would pass.

We were very surprised at the amount of halloween stuff on sale in the shops
whilst we were in Lyon last October. It seemed even bigger there than it is
here in the UK.

Maybe the UK will follow France's lead and it will eventually die out here
too, or is that just wishful thinking?

Elaine

This American commercial fad has also been imported into Germany with
mixed success in recent years. We had one group of kids yesterday ring
on the door for a "trick or treat".
November 1st has always been a public holiday here so that people can
pursue the original religous purpose of Halloween, and tend the graves
of their departed loved ones.
T.

Icono Clast writes:

Hallwe'en is, and has always been, San Francisco's biggest party.

Isn't every day a party day in San Francisco?

If you have only one day to spend in San Francisco, Hallowe'en is the
day to do so.

Isn't every day Halloween in San Francisco?

One of the reasons I'd avoid San Francisco is that I _don't like_
massive public demonstrations with people behaving strangely in strange
costumes. I don't like special events at all, as a general rule,
especially those that produce crowds.

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

wrote:

Halloween in Northern Ireland is a heady mix of high explosives and more high
explosives. Oddly enough they are illegal to buy without a permit. However
nobody has ever been prosecuted for buying the darn things. I expect the
hospitals will be full of the wounded tomorrow.

Would that the fireworks only came out on October 31 and November 5.
It's almost non-stop for October and November in much of urban Britain.
Kids throw firecrackers at buses, trains, each other, and apparently
through the windows of the elderly (thinking of one quite horrible
recent case.)

Everyone says it's unfair to ban them, based on the bad behaviour of the
few, but in fact, I think they're fast becoming a public nuisance. The
current laws obviously have no effect. Of course, politicians don't tend
to live among the masses, so they have little real idea of what people
have to put up with.

David

--
David Horne- www.davidhorne.co.uk
davidhorne (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk

In article , Elaine
writes

We were very surprised at the amount of halloween stuff on sale in the shops
whilst we were in Lyon last October. It seemed even bigger there than it is
here in the UK.

Maybe the UK will follow France's lead and it will eventually die out here
too, or is that just wishful thinking?

Elaine


There was a lot in the UK supermarkets this year, but no-one came trick
or treating and I saw no-one in fancy dress.
--
Marie Lewis

On a recent trip from here in Scotland - where Halloween was
celebrated for hundreds of years - to Nice, I was surprised to see a
lot MORE Halloween decoration up in shops all over Nice than I'm ever
used to seeing at home in Edinburgh. Rather startling.

Anyway, by the time Halloween is near, shops here are well into their
Christmas celebrations! My local supermarket has already dragged out
its dreaded robot carol singing machine and set it up at the front
entrance, where it'll ponderously try to look cute (it fails utterly)
and sing loudly in nasty American accents until the end of the year.

--
-- Chris.