It was always going to prove to be a greater challenge than anything that Britain could offer, a cultural hurdle that would be, at best, difficult to clear, and so nobody should be surprised that the French, presented with a cup of Starbucks' finest Frappuccino, have greeted it with a resounding “non!”

“Starbucks should never have come to France,” Bernard Boutboul, head of Gira Sic Conseil, the country's leading food industry consultancy, said. “The French don't drink coffee all day, they don't have a culture of flavoured coffees and they don't want to pay too much for their coffee.” A latte priced between €3.70 and €4.60 was seen as exorbitant when a standard petit noir in a café cost about €1.50, he said.

But Starbucks is undaunted. The American coffee giant has appointed its third managing director for France in four years, handing Philippe Sanchez, 44, who has joined from Paxson, the communications group, the task of making the breakthrough.

The Seattle-based chain, which opened its first outlet in France in 2004, is facing accusations that the strategy with which steamrollered the UK is ill-suited to France. Its Gallic operation has yet to break even and some of its shops regularly take less than €1,000 a day, according to Capital, the business weekly.

Moreover, the chain is seeking international expansion to compensate for difficulties in the United States. With profits down 28 per cent and its share price halved in a year, Starbucks called back Howard Schultz, who turned the company into global name, as chief executive in January.

Although the French market is relatively small - with 41 shops, compared with almost 650 in the UK - the symbolic value is high. Failure in le pays de la gastronomie would be a blow to Starbucks' image worldwide.

A spokeswoman denied that French consumers were snubbing Starbucks. “Sales have exceeded our expectations and we have had 50 per cent growth for the third year in a row,” she said. However, analysts said that growth was due to the opening to new outlets.

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