“Social Fast Food” and the beyond of a McDonald’s in Marseille: approximate translation: NPR

Kamel Guemari stands in front of the community center installed in a former McDonald’s in Marseille.

Eleanor beardsley

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Eleanor beardsley

Kamel Guemari stands in front of the community center installed in a former McDonald’s in Marseille.

Eleanor beardsley

Each company has its own corporate culture. Slogans and values ​​that are expected to you learn and live as an employee – and which you will likely forget when you go out at the end of the day.

But what happens when a company’s employees take this corporate philosophy so deeply that it really interferes with business?

In this episode, we revisit an immigrant neighborhood in Marseille, France, where a group of former McDonald’s workers turned a local franchise into a bastion of their community values. In 2019, when the future of their restaurant was on the line, we followed these workers as they launched a kind of revolution.

And now, in a year when so many restaurants have closed due to the pandemic, this McDonald’s has come to an unlikely afterlife.

Email us at roughtranslation@npr.org.

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