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 Halloween
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including the U.S.A., where they really know how to get out and howl for
Halloween night! |
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It's Halloween... Except in France
Copyright 2006 Reuters. All rights reserved.
PARIS, France (Reuters, October 31,
2006) -- Halloween, ancient Celtic festival or U.S. marketing gimmick
according to your point of view, is dying in France after a short-lived
breakthrough, French media reported on Tuesday.
"Halloween is pretty much buried," the daily le Monde
reported, quoting Benoit Pousset, head of costume company Cesar, who
attributed the festival's demise in France to "a cultural reaction
linked to the rise of anti-Americanism".
"Our Halloween sales have been falling by half every year
since 2002," Franck Mathais of toys retailer La Grande Recre told the
newspaper. A group called "Non a
Halloween" set up to fight the trend, which it saw as an unwelcome
intrusion fostered by purely commercial interests, even wound itself up
last year. "There was no need
for the group to exist any more," former president Arnaud Guyot-Jeannin
told Reuters. Halloween is
believed to have originated as a Celtic agricultural festival before
becoming associated with the night before the Christian festival of All
Saints Day on Nov. 1. During the
20th century, it became firmly established in the United States, marked
by hollowed out pumpkin heads and children dressed as ghosts demanding
"Trick or Treat" from passers-by.
Introduced in France during the 1990s, it aroused strong
opposition from many who found it artificial and over commercial and the
festival never caught on properly. The Catholic church was particularly
skeptical. The daily Le Parisien
painted a desolate picture of abandoned pumpkins and sorry displays in
isolated restaurant doorways and declared "Halloween is dead".
"Halloween was a marketing gimmick aimed mainly at
children. It's a big festival of consumption selling outfits, masks,
gadgets and it couldn't last forever," Guyot-Jeannin said.
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Every
year, Halloween enthusiasts anxiously await the retail
industry to begin their Halloween season and see who's
first to stock products for the spooky season. Many
stores begin stocking Halloween products as early as
July! |
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