Related events of Galeries Lafayette Group

On the morning of February 22, 2010, Paul DELAOUTRE, executive president (CEO) of Galeries Lafayette, led Bo Anne, general manager of Galeries Lafayette in Paris Haussmann , Aziza BOUSTER, Director of the Group Press Department and other senior group officials, held a Chinese press conference in the administrative building of Galeries Lafayette Haussmann to publicly express their "most sincere apology" for the humiliating incident of Chinese tourists shopping on February 11, 2010. It also promised to punish those directly responsible, improve reception facilities, increase security guards who can speak Chinese, and set up a Chinese complaint hotline to ensure that similar incidents will not happen again in the future. Counselor Xu Jiangong, Director of the Consular Department of the Chinese Embassy in France, Political Counselor Zhu Liying, and Consular Department official Liu Weitong attended the press conference. On February 11, 2010, a Chinese couple traveled to France with a group and went shopping at the Galeries Lafayette flagship store on Avenue Haussmann in Paris. When they paid, the cashier thought one of the notes was "counterfeit" and immediately called security personnel to take the couple into the security department.

After several rounds of "verification", the banknote was still considered "counterfeit", and the store staff immediately called the police. The police took the couple to the police station and conducted an "inhumane" questioning and search. Finally, a bank expert identified the banknotes as genuine.

Afterwards, the couple returned to the Galeries Lafayette flagship store and prepared to shop and pay again, but the cashier once again determined that the banknotes were "counterfeit banknotes", and the two parties clashed. During this period, the couple's travel group also received "unfair" treatment at the Galeries Lafayette flagship store. Chinese tourists were deeply angry at the practices of the Galeries Lafayette flagship store. At 8:30 am local time on February 22, 2010, Galeries Lafayette Group officially held a public apology meeting. The public apology meeting invited major Chinese media in France, and two officials from the Chinese Embassy in France were also invited to participate. Five senior leaders from the Galeries Lafayette Group attended the meeting, including the group president, media and public relations director, operations director, general manager of the Paris flagship store and China project manager of the development department. Galeries Lafayette Group President Draoutre made a public apology on behalf of the group. He said: “We would like to express our formal and most sincere condolences to the young Chinese couple who were deeply hurt by the incident on February 11, 2010, their tour group members, and all the Chinese people who were hurt by this incident. Apologize."

De Laoutre said that although the store conducted multiple verifications on the counterfeit banknotes, it finally came to a regrettable wrong conclusion. Although the group was acting in accordance with legal procedures, it forgot its responsibility to receive and accompany customers, which is very regrettable and unacceptable. Galeries Lafayette will never allow similar incidents to happen again. The Galeries Lafayette Group also announced that it would immediately take a number of measures to prevent similar incidents from happening again. The group will re-examine its contingency procedures for payment problems and emphasize the arrangements for customer reception during its handling process, such as receiving customers in a dedicated reception room and immediately providing translation services, and assisting customers in contacting their embassy if requested.

In addition, the Paris flagship store will recruit three Chinese security guards starting next week to directly cooperate with the work of the Chinese customer reception desk, set up a special hotline for Chinese customers, and provide Chinese tourists with Chinese language at any time during the mall's business hours. service, conduct detailed review and make necessary adjustments to all work of the security department.

De Laoutre said that he had sent a written apology letter to the young Chinese couple on February 19, 2010. According to a copy of the apology letter provided by Galeries Lafayette Group, the group has contacted the police department and hopes that they will adopt a flexible attitude and approach towards tourists visiting France for goodwill visits. In the letter, De Laoutre formally apologized to the couple on behalf of the group and wished to gift them a new trip to Paris with a date to be determined by themselves, or they could choose to keep the cost of the trip.

Reporters from the Chinese media at the scene kept asking questions to the group's senior management, and Draoutre patiently answered them and said that the group bore unshirkable responsibility for the incident.

He has repeatedly stated that Chinese tourists are the largest foreign shopping group received by Galeries Lafayette, especially the Paris flagship store. The Chinese are friends of Galeries Lafayette, and such an incident makes the entire group feel embarrassed. He said that he would take all measures to take good care of Chinese friends in his future work.

An official of the Chinese Embassy in France said that they accepted the sincerity of Galeries Lafayette Group’s apology and hoped that the group would pay attention to the quality of reception and attitude towards Chinese tourists in its future work. They also expressed the hope that all Chinese tourists coming to France would actively seek help from the embassy when encountering problems. In addition, they said that the head of the embassy police force has initiated negotiations with the Paris police, hoping that the police will reflect on their treatment of Chinese people and take measures to avoid similar situations from happening.