Nationalist outrage succumbs to low, low prices. And lowering of the control rods by the government. From the New York Times:

On Thursday, the first day of a planned boycott against Carrefour, a French department store chain here, there were a few low-key protests around the country but most Carrefour outlets did a brisk business in peanut oil, petit fours and family packs of lychee juice.

The boycott call, publicized through text messages and popular websites, has been urging Chinese consumers to avoid the stores as a way to punish France for what China considers its shabby reception of the Olympic torch.

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On Thursday, the start of a three-day national holiday here, there were reports of small rallies at a dozen Carrefour outlets around the country but the absence of any mammoth groundswell, coupled by the throngs of unapologetic shoppers, suggested that nationalistic fury may be fading. “Politics is one thing but the people have to eat,” said Zheng Wu, 55, a Beijing housewife whose shopping cart was loaded with a 12-roll bundle of toilet paper, two large sacks of rice, a box of corn flakes, three pairs of pink flip flops and a plunger. 

Having swung by the Shuangjing Carrefour today (on my way to the next door B&Q to pick up blackout curtains so the baby stops waking up at the unreasonably early crack of dawn) I can report no protest was in evidence. The only outrage on display was mine, kindled by the indifferent service from B&Q's curtain department. Honestly, don't make me wander around your loading docks with a baby and a receipt. Just go back and get the goddamned curtains for me.

But I digress. Outrage in China burns hot, but it also often burns briefly, especially when dialed down by the filtering mechanisms that limit SMS and Internet coordination. Perhaps this renders the issue of Carrefour's crisis management moot. At least until the French do something else to annoy China.