Lula criticizes Carrefour after the complaint for racism of two black Brazilians

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has referred to Carrefour supermarkets in very harsh terms this Monday after two black customers accused the company of having treated them in a racist manner this weekend in two stores in São Paulo and Curitiba (Paraná).

"We have to tell the Carrefour management: if they want to do this in their country of origin [France], let them do it, but in this country we will not admit racism," the president proclaimed at the meeting with his entire Cabinet on the occasion of the first 100 days of his term.

It rains it pours because there are multiple complaints against the company for racist incidents.

The most serious case occurred in 2020. Two white guards beat a black customer to death in a store in Porto Alegre, in the whitest Brazil in 2020. As it happened on the eve of Black Awareness Day, it amplified its impact.

In neither of these two cases does the company acknowledge a racist attitude.

He only admits that an employee, already fired, missed a black customer this weekend in a business in one of the most exclusive areas of São Paulo, Alphaville, a gated community.

The Carrefour cashier refused to serve him, but she did process the purchase of the next client, who was white.

The victim, Vinícius de Paula, husband of a two-time Olympic champion volleyball player and son of a famous singer, denounced the case on networks and announced a complaint to the police.

“If Carrefour were not a company with a racist record, I would say it was just an unusual situation,” De Paula later explained.

His complaint was added to another case in which the company does not admit that there was racist behavior on the part of its employees.

Lula has briefly described what happened to a client in an Atacadão supermarket, which belongs to Carrefour, in Curitiba.

Isabel Oliveira, actress and teacher, went shopping in panties and a bra, while her husband recorded with his cell phone, in protest for having been "treated like a marginal" by a security guard who, earlier, followed her through the hallways for half an hour as if afraid he was going to steal.

The company maintains that it has reviewed the recordings and does not find any improper attitude.

The client maintains in the video that she spread networks with her complaint that she will have to go half-naked to the purchase to avoid being treated as a suspect.

Carrefour has reported that it immediately fired the cashier who did not serve the São Paulo customer and recalled that in the last two years (since the customer's murder in Porto Alegre) it has invested 115 million reais (23 million dollars) in combat structural racism with special emphasis on education.

"All our employees are constantly being trained to have an anti-racist position," he says in a note.

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