manger sur le pouce

Manger sur le pouce (‘To eat on the thumb’) is an expression that appeared in the 19th century and refers to the thumb being used a lot when handling a knife and slices of bread, in other words, when having a quick meal, not sitting at a restaurant table. These days it tends to mean a burger and fries.

The first McDonald’s opened in France in 1972 and today there are 1,485 ‘Macdo’ outlets and they are usually pretty busy! In fact France is the chain’s most profitable country outside of the United States. Why? It stays open all day and until late at night, most serve beer, offer free WiFi and most of all, it’s cheap.