The Legend of Carrefour

Yes, Carrefour speech is confusing. For the opening of their first hypermarket in Russia (Moscow), Thierry Garnier, Member of Carrefour Group Executive Committee, has stated: "The Carrefour Group believes that the Russian retail market has outstanding long term potential and considers it to be one of the strategic priorities for the company’s international. "(source http://www.carrefour.com/ )
And now to declare that they do not see enough perspective in the Russian market. This could be irritating.

Ok, Carrefour came with a pretentious view on the Russian retail market, shouting everywhere that they are "the first retailer in Europe and the second world and most internationalized retailer", aiming to have a leadership position on the Russian market. This could be irritating as well for the Russians in general.

And perhaps as well they underestimated the people they were negociating with...
Finally they did exactly all that should not be done when trying to enter a market. And everybody seems to be delighted with the news: Carrefour will sell its activities in Russia. When French titles are neutral, Russian ones are hard and ironic: "Carrefour takes flight", "Carrefour, first european retailer and second in the world, did not survive in Russia", ""Carrefour did not achieve its conquest of Russia"...French people are at the same time associated to Carrefour: "French people are running out of Russia", "French people didn't survive"...
Of course Carrefour is not representative of French companies neither of French people.