A French branch of Subway, the fast-food retailer, has been forced to shut after it advertised a Valentine’s Day 
deal that did not include gay couples.
The store, which offered a discounted meal specifically for male/female couples, said it was exercising “freedom of expression,” the Huffington Post reports.
Same-sex marriage was approved by the National Assembly in France last week, but still needs to go to the upper house of French Parliament to be ratified.
Small print at the bottom of the store’s advert said: “Discrimination (?) No, the marriage for all law has advanced, but has yet to be ratified by the Senate. Until then, I’ll use my freedom of expression.”
However, following a backlash on Twitter and Facebook after a picture of the poster was published online, the franchise was forced to close by national management the next day.
The poster advertised a meal deal which included a footlong Subway sandwich, a drink and a dessert each for 14 Euros for couples on Valentine’s Day.
In brackets next to the word ‘couples’ were the letters ‘H/F’ to indicate that this was defined as a man and a woman.
According to French media reports, another Subway in the area was forced to close its Facebook page because of ‘abusive comments’ despite having nothing to do with the offer.
Subway’s corporate headquarters intervened after photos of the offer were widely circulated on social media, and the restaurant was swiftly closed last Friday.
Following an influx of negative comments, Subway France took to Twitter to address concerns and apologised for the offer in a post on its Facebook page Saturday morning, writing:
“The SUBWAY brand is strongly committed to maintaining the values of diversity and inclusiveness in its restaurants around the world and does not endorse in any discrimination of any kind.
“We apologise to all those people who felt offended by the individual promotional initiative for Valentine’s Day of a restaurant in Angers, France.”