Mc Donald's french fries are
not fried in
lard anymore. Not for at least 10 years.
However, it was recently "discovered" that the natural flavoring in them is at least partially of animal origin, specifically, beef. This was discovered by Eric Schlosser while writing Fast Food Nation.
Think about this for a while. The whole cholesterol scare comes up, no one wants lard anymore, so Mickey D's replaces it with hydrogenated vegetable oil which is as saturated as lard, and a beef extract, so that the fries basically taste the same as if they were fried in lard. Sure there's less cholesterol, but now we know that saturated fat is every bit as bad. And, sorry, are you a vegetarian, or better yet, a Hindu? Oh well, we'll just not tell you.
There's currently a lawsuit being filed by vegetarians and Hindus in the United States about this very issue. In fact, many Hindus who believed they were eating cow-free fries are now very concerned, because they are not sure atonement for their actions is possible, and this will significantly affect their afterlife and attainment of nirvana. Since McDonald's didn't disclose animal ingredients in their fries, and may have insinuated they were not there by advertising no lard, they may have an issue here.
And, by the way, french fries at McDonald's in India do not have the beef flavoring in them, and are in fact vegetarian. They also have the Maharaja Mac which is made of mutton instead of beef, and do not sell any pork due to the large Muslim population there.