Carrefour Group is a French multinational retail and wholesaling corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets, grocery, and convenience stores with 14,000 stores in 40 countries. It is the seventh-largest retailer in the world by revenue. (Wikipedia)

Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), November 5, 2024

After a large scale and creative boycott campaign that contributed to huge financial losses and reputational damage, Majid Al Futtaim Group, the partner of the French Group Carrefour in most of the Arab region, announced the complete termination of its commercial dealings with Carrefour in Jordan.

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest Palestinian coalition leading the global BDS movement, launched, with its partners, a global campaign to boycott Carrefour in December 2022, due to the French global retail group’s complicity in the crimes of the Israeli settler-colonial regime against the Palestinian people.

Since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal war against 2.3 million Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, the call to boycott Carrefour has escalated due to its branches’ support for the crime of genocide by providing free gift packages to Israel’s genocidal forces. 

One of these stores also launched a campaign to collect donations to support the “brave” Israeli soldiers participating in the genocide. Moreover, Carrefour Israel has partnership agreements with Israeli technology companies and banks involved in Israel’s war crimes and grave human rights violations against Palestinians.

Carrefour in Jordan has been forced to close a number of its branches over the past year, leading to the decision to end its entire operation in the country. BDS activists have also recorded the closure of Carrefour stores in other countries in the Arab region, which confirms the impact of the broad popular boycott campaign and the significant role it can play in imposing heavy costs on giant companies due to their complicity in Israeli crimes.

This success for our partners, BDS Jordan, comes at a time when BDS campaigns targeting other major consumer brands such as McDonald’s are expanding impressively, and campaigns to boycott, divest from or otherwise pressure companies that are implicated in Israeli crimes and gross human rights violations, such as AXA, HP, Chevron, Intel and others, are growing worldwide.

According to Majid Al Futtaim Group’s semi-annual report for 2024, retail sector profits fell by almost half (by 47%) due to the decline in consumer confidence as a result of “the geopolitical conflict in the region,” referring to the widespread and influential popular boycott campaign across the region, from Jordan to Morocco, from Egypt and Tunisia to Bahrain and Kuwait and even the Emirates.

Over the past two years, the #BoycottCarrefour campaign has seen numerous protests outside Carrefour stores, despite repressive measures in some countries to stifle activism calling for an end to complicity. In Jordan in particular, the Carrefour boycott campaign has evolved some unique innovations, including organizing pledges, letters, and electronic campaigns, in addition to organizing popular committees and regional and artistic competitions. All of this has led to remarkable customer and supplier engagement in the campaign.

The Palestinian BDS National Committee – the largest coalition in Palestinian society in the homeland and diaspora and the leader of the global BDS movement – salutes its partners, BDS Jordan, and all Jordanians who contributed to this achievement. We look forward to escalating the #BoycottCarrefour campaign across the region to make Carrefour’s partners, Majid Al Futtaim Group and (LabelVie) Group, completely sever their partnerships with the French company.

We also continue to call for a boycott of all stores that carry the Carrefour brand or sell its products, until Majid Al Futtaim Group announces the complete termination of its partnership with the French group across the Arab World. We also call on the Emirati group Al Futtaim to pressure its French partner to end its complicity in Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights.

Being associated with Carrefour today is not only a financial risk, but also entails moral and legal responsibilities. The French group must respond to the campaign’s demands to avoid a growing global popular boycott. Let us escalate our boycott of Carrefour everywhere to compel it to respect our people’s rights and to stop complicity in violating them.