The firm canceled the concert of a pro-democracy singer.
9/6/2016
Lancome, owned by French cosmetics giant L'Oreal, closed its main stores in Hong Kong yesterday, after protesters gathered accusing her of bowing to pressure from China by canceling a pro-democracy singer's concert.
Carrying yellow umbrellas, a symbol of Hong Kong's democracy movement, and colorful signs in Chinese, english and french, Politicians and dozens of protesters gathered at the company's offices in the Times Square mall, en Causeway Bay, a major shopping district of the island. “L’Oreal, “no to self-censorship”, they shouted, and they also called to boycott the brand's products.
Lancome suspended pop singer Denise Ho's concert after an online post by the Global Times, a tabloid published by the newspaper of the Communist Party of China, People’s Daily, criticized Lancome for working with Ho and sparked calls for authorities to shut down Lancome's operations in mainland China.
Ho has expressed his support for the Hong Kong democracy movement and the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet who is denounced by Beijing as a dangerous separatist. L’Oreal, which has a market capitalization of 95 billion euros
(US$ 108 billion), affirms that China is its second market by sales, behind the United States. The company argued that it canceled the government for security reasons.
