We’ve seen it before: Giant discounts on TVs or games consoles or perhaps the latest iPhone generate a frenzy among shoppers.

But in France, it seems, 70 percent off the hazelnut-and-chocolate spread Nutella can also do the trick.

When a supermarket chain slashed the price of 33-ounce jars of the spread on Thursday, scenes grew so heated in one store in Ostricourt, in the north of France, that the police had to be called.