Anti-French, anti-Carrefour fury bubble over all across China

We're somewhat late bringing this to you, but yes, over the weekend, anti-French protests took place over the weekend all over China outside Carrefour stores in Hefei, Qingdao, Wuhan, Shenzhen, Xuzhou, Zhengzhou, Luoyang, Jinan and Kunming. Although these were mainly anti-French anti-Carrefour protests, they were described by People's Daily as "protests against Tibetan independence".

As usual, ESWN has been on top of things bringing us the latest news. This incident related last Thursday by ESWN may explain why Carrefour Wuhan has seen some of the strongest protests. Apparently, passers-by had captured the Chinese national flag outside the Hongshanjia (Wuhan) store at half mast. ESWN explains this was most likely unintentional (because security guards soon corrected the situation after the photos were taken) and in fact, it isn't even clear that the flags are the responsibility of Carrefour.

Another more recent story relates to Jin Jing, our Paralympian heroine who had bravely defended the Olympic torch from some pro-Tibetan protestor in Paris during the torch relay. ESWN tells of how she has become the greatest traitor of the Chinese nation literally overnight for merely suggesting that people should be careful about the Carrefour boycott, because the many Chinese employees of that company would be the first to suffer.

See the photos below collated by ESWN from various news sources and also reader Clark Wang. The authorities are undoubtedly watching the newfound protest-organising powers of the people (remember the maglev protests?) with a very wary eye, because who knows when the tide will turn and who the people will be protesting against next?

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