LONDON: The boss of one of Britain’s biggest department store chains apologised yesterday for calling France “hopeless and downbeat” and telling investors to avoid it.
Andy Street, managing director of John Lewis, told dinner guests that in France “nothing works and worse, nobody cares about it” according to The Times newspaper.
He made the comments after he was delayed on a Eurostar train from Paris back to London after he had received a retail award in the French capital.
The incident is an embarrassment for John Lewis, an upscale retailer which has 43 stores in Britain, as it is planning to launch a French-language website denominated in euros. The paper quoted Street as saying: “You get on Eurostar from something I can only describe as the squalor pit of Europe, Gare du Nord, and you get off at a modern, forward-looking station.”
Street dismissed an award given to him at the World Retail Congress event in Paris as being “made of plastic” and “frankly revolting”. “If I needed any further evidence of a country in decline, here it is. Every time I (see it), I shall think, God help France,” he said at a technology award dinner in London. “If you’ve got investments in French businesses, get them out quickly.”
But Street said yesterday the comments were not meant to be taken seriously. “The remarks I made were supposed to be light-hearted views, and tongue in cheek,” he said in a statement.AFP
