Unlikely Hero in Europe’s Spat: The ‘Polish Plumber’

Responding to the recent flood of bad publicity about the potential loss of French jobs to Polish immigrants, Poland has come up with a marketing plan to improve its reputation in France. Hiring a model to pose as a "Polish plumber" – a figure who has come to symbolize French labor concerns – in its advertisements, the Polish Tourism Bureau is attempting to assure the French that the Polish have no intention of stealing their jobs. The fear of cheap imported labor in France has been so overwhelming that it has dominated the discourse about the struggling domestic economy. Incidentally, the the French plumbing union reports a nationwide shortage of 6000 plumbers – only 150 Polish plumbers currently work in France. –YaleGlobal