The recipe for success seemed ready. Eggs, flour and sugar for the dough. Nutella, Kinder Bueno and a few pieces of speculoos as a gift. deck. With its pretty window display, Cookies Richard had everything to please the inhabitants of Deauville. However, in this mini-boutique on Rue Désiré-le-Hoc, customers are not in a hurry this morning of August 21. And those who take the risk, mostly tourists, probably know nothing of the affair that has occupied the city since the start of the Paris Olympic Games. Almost a month ago, a wave of boycott and hatred fell brutally on the small artisanal business. Orchestrated, at first, by faceless strangers on social networks, it emerged after the shop decorated its cookies with flags in the colours of most of the countries participating in the Olympic Games, including Palestine.
Cookies Richard is first and foremost a family. The Forest family, made up of the parents, Isabelle and Pierre, who design the cookies from their home in Pont-L’Evêque. There are also Alexia and Eliot, the children, who are in charge of sales in the shops in Deauville and Caen. And the dog Richard, who gave the company its name. A few days before bad buzz, The family therefore ordered around 250 mini-flags in the colours of the main delegations: Germany, Belgium, Finland, Israel, and also Palestine. Although not recognised as a state by the UN, it is represented by several athletes at the Paris Games. In the window, each country is represented twice. “At no point did we think this would be a problem… We just wanted to decorate our cookies in reference to the event at hand.” says Eliot, the son.
Only the next day, an Internet user posted a photo on Facebook showing one of the cookies in the colors of Palestine, accompanied by the text: “ Spotted in Deauville! Boycott and share. » On the evening of July 25, the eve of the opening ceremony, a flood of comments on Google began to denigrate the store and the quality of its products. “ Although we responded to the comments explaining that it was not a political gesture, people did not want to understand.” says Alexia.
Fake commands and network threats
In the following days, the young people had fun walking around the store shouting: “Boycott!” Boycott! » “ “We’re going to shut you down.” a passing lawyer promises one day.
The grandmother, the only member of the family living in Deauville, is attacked in a café. Since then, she He doesn’t leave his house anymore », say her children. Louise, the 17-year-old seasonal girl, probably remains the most marked of them all.
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