It's sparked everything from customs seizures to raids on shops and claims of colonial insensitivity – what a time it's been for the hazelnut spread El Mordjene.
France's decision to ban the wildly popular Algerian product has made it a "political football", the focus of a "bitter" trade row and a "jumping-off point" for an "angry" discussion about colonialism, said The Telegraph.
El Mordjene has a "light gloopy texture" and a "sweet, hazelnutty, moreish" flavour, as if it were Nutella's "pale, silken cousin", said the broadsheet.
It fell foul of the French last September when two shipments of El Mordjene were stopped at French customs. Officials claimed that the Algerian spread infringed Nutella’s trademarks, but the French government said that it was banned because Algeria was not permitted to export dairy products to EU countries.
Members of the Algerian-French community claim the ban is another attempt by mainstream France to "keep down" its Muslim immigrants, according to The Times. Some say the spread was banned because its logo features a woman wearing a veil.
On the other side of the fence, right-wing commentators claim the "craze" for El Mordjene is another symbol of the takeover of "traditional white France" by Muslims from the Maghreb.
So the episode has gone "much deeper" than a "wacky food fight" or an "abstruse" trade dispute, said The New Yorker magazine. Rather than being about the product itself, it's about "nostalgia, memory, injustice, nationalism, globalisation, decolonisation, protectionism, racism, identity, immigration" – and "invasion".
But for British customers who can "still get their hands on a jar", it is a "Brexit dividend", added The Telegraph, and the "most moreish" one to date. | 
