France has just adopted new rules on nutritional quality of food served in school canteens. I came across a video featuring agriculture minister Bruno Le Maire.
You can watch it here, but here’s a synopsis for non-French speakers:
France has a 3-point plan to guard against the degradation of nutritional standards and food culture in its schools:
1) Adhere to nutritional standards for meals served in school canteens
2) Educate children about taste and valuing French produce
3) Ensure that sharing food at mealtimes remains a part of French culture.
France is taking action against a culture where people rush through meals in 30 seconds without paying attention to what they are eating, the nutritional quality, the quality of the produce, or the origin. It is aiming retain a model where the origin of produce, the seasons, and childrens’ health are respected.
Bruno Le Maire claims that France is a world leader in this respect. [Discuss!]. He says that everyone – including his four kids – knows meals in school and university canteens are not great, and he wants to do something about it.
This includes changing procurement rules so the emphasis is not on securing the cheapest price, but on quality and origin.
The new rules are the first time France has had mandatory and controlled nutritional standards. Le Maire says he expects the country will extend these rules to cover not just schools but other collective eating establishments. In a country famed for gastronomy, it is important to ensure that good food is not just for a small number of people – but for all French people, and especially the young.
Related posts:
On the other side of things, check out these two stories related to a very different side of the French canteen: it seems that some schools have made the canteens accessible only to those students whose parents work during the day. (Presumably the non-working parents should be at home to fix their kids’ meals at mid-day.) Obviously there’s a major equity issue with this: children whose parents are unemployed (and France has an especially high unemployment rate) are among the most vulnerable and ostensibly the most ‘in need’ of a good school meal. Denying precisely the most vulnerable students doesn’t seem to make much sense from a justice and equity perspective, does it? And that’s what the parents said, taking their protests to the streets (not exactly, but you get the point). Here a Le Monde article http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2011/09/12/la-fcpe-lance-un-appel-contre-les-refus-d-acces-aux-cantines-scolaires_1571299_3224.html and a Radio France feature: http://www.rfi.fr/emission/20110914-cantines-scolaires )
I agree that it’s a strange exclusion, I believe partly born out of the presumption that a home-prepared meal will always be preferable to a canteen meal, despite the nutritional standards. Speaks volumes about the public face of French culture – which is not necessarily the reality.
It must be emphasised, though, that it is not all schools that exclude kids with parents who don’t work – it’s very much a local thing, according to each commune and the capacity of the school’s canteen. The radio segment also points out that there is a possibility for parents to ask for school meals if their circumstances require it.
France is obviously controlling its people!