French Shoppers Go Full Black Friday Over Flash Nutella Sale

Shoppers in France went nutty over heavily discounted Nutella on Thursday.

In ugly scenes evocative of Black Friday in the U.S., some customers at Intermarché supermarkets brawled in a bid to bag cheap jars of the chocolate-hazelnut spread, according to multiple media reports.

Police were reportedly called to deal with outbreaks of violence after the chain slashed the price of a 950-gram jar by 70 percent, to 1.41 euros (about $1.76) from 4.50 euros (about $5.61).

“They are like animals,” the BBC reported one customer at an unidentified store as saying. “A woman had her hair pulled, an elderly lady took a box on her head, another had a bloody hand.”

A regional French newspaper described the commotion as a “riot.” Some scenes were captured on camera:

In some stores, customers were limited to how many jars they could buy.

“People were piling in, they knocked everything over and broke stuff,” a worker at a store in Moselle, in eastern France, told the Agence France-Presse news agency.

The Nutella sale is slated to continue until Saturday.

Intermarché has not yet commented on the violence.

Ferrero, Nutella’s Italian maker, has distanced itself from the promotion, saying the supermarket chain “unilaterally” decided to cut the price.

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