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French supermarket takes bottles with obscene, anti-police slogans off shelves

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Monoprix took smoothie bottles printed with "offending" texts off the shelve
Monoprix took smoothie bottles printed with "offending" texts off the shelve AFP/File
Text by: Jan van der Made Follow | RFI Follow
1 min

Monoprix, a supermarket chain belonging to the Casino group, announced on Monday it was withdrawing a smoothie aimed at youngsters for its offensive packaging. 

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Bottles of the popular True Fruits smoothies covered with prints of obscene drawings, slang and anti-police slogans were removed.

"Packaging of the True Fruits brand carrying intolerable texts are not compatible with our values," Monoprix tweeted on Tuesday.

The bottles, containing mango juice or pulp, part of the "Rentrée 2021" collection – referring to the start of the school year – were covered with sketches and expressions like "fuck the system," "I hate school" and "ACAB," short for "all cops are bastards".

The "ACAB" acronym originated in the 1920s in the UK and was used by people opposing the police. It resurfaced as a slogan against racially-biased police violence after the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Chicago in 2020. 

"We have immediately warned the provider and started to remove them from the shops concerned," according to Monoprix.

The union of the French National Police, Alliance PN, tweeted that printing the slogan was "the perfect manual on how to destroy relations between the police and the people".

But in a counter-tweet, True Fruits said that the French police were overreacting, pointing out that "ACAB" may have other meanings as well and adding that they "loved Louis de Funès," the French comedian who became known for his hilarious role as a policeman in the Gendarme de Saint Tropez movies.

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