bottling plants in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Italy. Within five years of its creation West Germany would have 96 such plants and became the largest market outside the US itself. But while some voices had been raised in protest in Belgium and Italy, it was in France that Coca-Cola’s plans unleashed a public storm. When Le Monde revealed that the company had set a target of 240 million bottles to be sold in France in 1950, there were loud objections—encouraged but not orchestrated by the Communists, who confined themselves to the warning that Coke’s distribution
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