In 1968, the French rioted against capitalism and consumerism. Fifty years later, they're fighting over cheap pots of Nutella.
The sugary spread's gone on special in Intermarché supermarkets across the country, down from €4.50 to €1.70. Video posted to social media shows shoppers grappling one another for pots of Nutella, in what local media have dubbed the 'Nutella riots'.
"They are like animals. A woman had her hair pulled, an elderly lady took a box on her head, another had a bloody hand," one customer told newspaper Le Progres.
"It was horrible."
Staff have been caught up in the not-quite Napoleonic battles.
"We were trying to get in between the customers but they were pushing us," one staff member told Le Progres.
One supermarket says it sold 700 pots in just 45 minutes. Fans reportedly turned up the night before the sale began to hide pots in strange places, ready to come back the next morning.
France loves Nutella, if it wasn't already clear - they normally go through 100 million pots a year, 1.5 for every person in the country.
Ferrero, the company which makes Nutella, said it regretted the violence - and it had nothing to do with Intermarché's decision to slash the price.
In 2016, authorities rejected a French couple's application to name their newborn child Nutella.
"It is against the child's interest to be saddled with a name that could only lead to mockery and unkind remarks," they said.
Despite its name, Nutella contains more sugar than all its other ingredients put together. Hazelnuts make up only 13 percent, behind sugar and the equally controversial palm oil.
Newshub.
