Le Big Mac attack is back

A dozen years after militant French farmer José Bové was jailed for bulldozing a McDonald’s outlet in southern France, the nation has become the company’s second-most-profitable market (after the U.S.), serving about 1.7 million meals a day in 1,228 outlets. What happened? A drastic makeover. Denis Hennequin, a Frenchman who was president of McDonald’s Europe until 2009, says that the company “adapted to the local ways of living”: It began sourcing three-quarters of its food locally, spent billions renovating its restaurants, and just introduced the McBaguette, with Emmental cheese and French mustard on classic French bread, bien sûr.