Meat-free school meals spark furor in France
By taking meat off the menu at school lunchrooms, the mayor of one of France’s most famously gastronomic cities has kicked up a storm of protest and debate as the country increasingly questions the environmental costs of its meaty dietary habits.
Children in Lyon who regularly were offered such choices as beef and chicken in rich sauces found their meat option missing this week when they returned from school holidays. In its place: a meatless fourcourse meal that Lyon City Hall says will be quicker and easier to serve to children who, because of the pandemic, must be kept apart during lunch to avoid infections.
City Hall insists that the meatless meals are temporary and that school lunchrooms again will offer meat options when distancing rules are relaxed and children have more time to dwell on their food choices and to eat.
And the meat-free menus still contain animal proteins. This week’s planned main courses include fish on Monday and Friday and eggs — either as omelettes or hard boiled with a creamy sauce — on other days. Children also get salad starters, a milk product — often cheese or yogurt — and dessert.
Still, farmers saw red. Some drove farm vehicles, cows and goats in protest on Monday into Lyon, which is proud of its rich restaurant culture and signature dishes, many of them meaty.
Protesters’ banners and placards extolled meat-eating, proclaiming “meat from our fields — a healthy child” and “Stopping meat is a guarantee of weakness against coronaviruses to come.”
The government’s agriculture minister, Julien Denormandie, accused Lyon City Hall of “putting ideology in our children’s plates.” He and other critics argued the measure would penalize children from poorer families who might not be able to eat meat outside of school.
“From a nutritional point of view, it is absurd to stop serving meat,” the minister said Tuesday on RTL radio. “From a social point of view, it is shameful.”
Although fueled by the quintessentially French obsession with food and the country’s powerful farming lobby, the furor also has gathered steam and taken on a political hue because of France’s electoral calendar. A wave of wins by green candidates, including the mayor of Lyon, in municipal elections last year dealt a blow to the centrist party of French President Emmanuel Macron. Their success reflected growing concerns in France about the environmental damage from intensive farming and other green issues. With more local elections expected later this year, the arguing over Lyon’s school meals offered a foretaste of broader political battles to come.
Lyon City Hall said serving the same meal to all children, instead of offering them their usual meat and meat-free options, would shorten the time they take for lunch. City Hall said it has just two hours to feed 29,000 children. City Hall said it also opted for meatfree meals because they suit all children, including those who habitually don’t eat meats for religious, dietary or other reasons.