It's a must when shopping in Mexico City. The Mitikah shopping mall is located at the foot of the new skyscrapers in the Xoco neighborhood, in the southwest of the city. Here, seven days a week, a dozen security guards − all wearing bulletproof vests − watch over the 280 stores and restaurants in this luxury mall, which opened in 2022 and is expected to attract 12 million people each year to the megalopolis of 9 million inhabitants. At the entrance, a gold-colored cardboard Eiffel Tower beckoned: This is the L'Oréal Paris pop-up store, crowded with young customers and displaying the company's slogan − "Porque yo lo valgo" ("Because I'm Worth It") − along with images of Kendall Jenner, its global ambassador for the past year. The brand has anchored its Mexican presence here, having set up its in-country headquarters a few floors up in the building.

In the land of Frida Kahlo, the painter famous for her colorful self-portraits, the French king of makeup has hit the bull's eye and the cosmetics market has been booming. The growth in sales of blushes, lotions and lip gloss was "six times higher than that of gross domestic product (GDP)," said Alexis Perakis-Valat, president of L'Oréal's consumer products division. Following a 17% jump in 2023, the Mexican beauty market has generated €7 billion of the sector's €400 billion in global sales. And Mexico "is the third-largest contributor to the company's global growth," said the president at a press briefing in Mexico City, to which Le Monde was invited.

Ever since the Covid-19 pandemic, this country of 132 million inhabitants − with an average age of 29 − has benefited from favorable winds. It escaped the economic slump that has gripped China and the inflation that has been wreaking havoc in Argentina and Brazil. "Price rises are under control, at 3%," said economist Carlos Pérez Verdia, managing partner of Simbiosis. According to the International Monetary Fund, GDP is likely to grow by 2.4% this year, after 3% in 2023.

The country has also been undergoing significant societal changes. Despite a "staggering number of femicides" (around 3,000 each year), the status of women in this patriarchal society is evolving, assured a L'Oréal executive. She is delighted that, for the first time, two women, Claudia Sheinbaum, former mayor of Mexico City, and Xochitl Gálvez, the opposition candidate, are running for the office of president of Mexico in the June 2 election to succeed Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador.

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