French supermarket pulls advertising from Polish state TV over anti-LGBT content

French supermarket giant Carrefour has announced that it is stopping an advertising campaign on Polish state broadcaster TVP after being made aware of anti-LGBT content.

On Wednesday, a Twitter user drew Carrefour’s attention to the fact that its adverts were appearing on TVP’s streaming platform. She also showed examples of headlines (auto-translated into French) relating to “LGBT ideology” on TVP’s news service, which is under government influence.

Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party claims that foreign “LGBT ideology” is being deliberately imported into Poland. This threatens traditional values, families and even the nation itself, according to PiS chairman Jarosław Kaczyński.

In response, Carrefour tweeted (in French) that such content “does not reflect our values” and that the firm has therefore “stopped its current [advertising] campaign” with TVP. It promised to “redouble our vigilance” in future.

The head of TVP’s news website, Samuel Pereira, responded by saying that their articles relating to LGBT simply reflect the fact that they report on what is happening in Poland. He suggested that Carrefour appeared to want them to censor certain information.

Carrefour’s Polish branch replied to Pereira simply by saying that the company has a policy of not associating its advertising with material relating to racism, discrimination, sex and violence. It said that its advert on TVP’s streaming service had been an “error” resulting from an automated system.

Earlier this year, a court in Poland ordered TVP to take down an anti-LGBT film from its YouTube channel following a legal case launched by Campaign Against Homophobia (KPH), an NGO.

The film, titled “Invasion”, claimed to reveal the “aims, methods and money” behind Poland’s LGBT community. It was broadcast on TVP’s main television channel days before parliamentary elections last year, when PiS had campaigned on a platform of protecting Poland from “LGBT ideology”.

The ruling party’s anti-LGBT rhetoric continued this year during the campaign to re-elect incumbent Andrzej Duda at July’s presidential election. This was again echoed in TVP’s coverage.

Its main evening news broadcasts suggested that the main opposition candidate, Rafał Trzaskowski, represented the interests of a “powerful foreign lobby” tied to George Soros which was responsible for bringing Muslim immigrants to Europe and seeking to introduce “LGBT ideology”.

One news report in June claimed that Spain is already living under “the dictate of LBGT ideology”, and suggested that Poland could be next if Trzaskowski won the election.

Carrefour is not the first big international company to become embroiled in the Polish government’s anti-LGBT campaign.

Last year, Swedish furniture giant IKEA fired one of its employees in Kraków after he made posts on the company’s internal messaging service that included quotes from biblical passages suggesting that gay people deserve to be killed.

The company’s decision was condemned by members of the Polish government, including the justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro, who called it “absolutely scandalous”.

Earlier this year, prosecutors – who are under the oversight of Ziobro in his other role as prosecutor general – brought charges against the IKEA manager responsible for the employee’s dismissal. They alleged that he had illegally “limited an employee’s rights on the grounds of religion”.

Main image credit: Michal Lepecki / Agencja Gazeta

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.