Protesters vent fury at French company for staying in Russia

WARSAW, Poland — A man in a Russian military uniform stood at the entrance of a large home improvement store in Poland’s capital, saluting shoppers and thanking them for funding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. “But they keep doing business and see no problem with financing the war.” It marked the latest protest in Poland over Leroy Merlin’s decision to keep operating 112 stores in Russia, even as many other Western companies have suspended operations there. Dominik Gąsiorowski, top organizer of the Polish Leroy Merlin Boycott movement, believes withholding business to a company that’s a major taxpayer in Russia is one of the few concrete things regular people can do to influence the outcome of the war. “I refuse to believe that my people, Polish people, cannot make such a small gesture of solidarity during a genocide as choosing another shop a few kilometers away.” During last weekend’s picketing, activists held a poster of a container alongside Leroy Merlin’s green logo, calling it a “bin for a corpse” with the message “Leroy Kremlin supports the Russian invasion.” It was designed by artist Bartłomiej Kiełbowicz, who also has created fake labels people have been sticking on shelves inside Leroy Merlin stores, including one for a broom and dustpan “for sweeping away guilt.” There is another for hammers — “for killing.” Andrzej Kubisiak, deputy director of the Polish Economic Institute, said it’s too soon to know the full effect of the protests but that an app monitoring movement on streets has showed less traffic going to Leroy Merlin, Auchan and Decathlon stores. But Gąsiorowski said the movement is focusing mostly on Leroy Merlin because it was the foreign company with the second-highest revenue in Russia in 2020, following cigarette maker Philip Morris International, which has suspended investments.