LETTER FROM FRANCE: SCHMEAR CAMPAIGN

Is a European conspiracy behind a ban on a virally popular hazelnut spread?

- BY LAUREN COLLINS

Every summer in France, an exodus takes place. It invariably begins in early July, when public school lets out, kicking off les grandes vacances. This year, the last day of school is July 4th. On July 5th, the country's airports, highways, and ferry terminals will swell with outbound travellers. Among them will be many of France's 7.3 million immigrants, who constitute some ten per cent of the population, and the descendants of immigrants, who account for many millions more. Nearly a third of children born in France in 2023 had at least one parent born abroad.

The exodus is a charged moment, an annual transmigration of people, money, goods, gifts, expectations, and yearnings nurtured through the long European winter. The ritual is colloquially known as le retour au bled, “the return to the homeland” or “the return to the village,” a combination of the French word for “return” and the Arabic word for “country.” Le retour au bled: Two parts of you stretching over a preposition and a sea. Going home with yawning kids, a fresh haircut, and a suitcase full of cheese and chocolate.

Weeks pass, and the diasporas return. What's in the suitcases now? Every community has its informal imports, lovingly swaddled in socks and ziplocks, and made to last until the next trip to the motherland. From Cameroon, there's shea butter and Moringa powder. From Turkey, ketchup, sweeter and smoother than the French version. People with roots in the United States load up on gel caps, extra-strength deodorant, and tooth-whitening strips. (Peanut butter, an emulsion, is considered a liquid by the Transportation Security Administration—as I learned when, seven months pregnant, I was forced to surrender a much longed for jar of Jif.) Travellers coming back from Algeria have long stuffed their bags with dates, olive oil, Bimo biscuits, and grenadine soda. Last summer, they made space for another item: a hazelnut spread called El Mordjene.