Soon a hot and complete meal for all students for a symbolic euro? The idea is back in the ranks of the hemicycle. Tuesday, October 29, the Finance Committee of the National Assembly adopted the measure, through an amendment presented by the Ecologist and Social group, as part of the debates on the 2025 budget.
In 2020, when France was hit hard by the health crisis, the one-euro meal was introduced for scholarship students. It was subsequently extended to non-scholarship holders in precarious situations. Yesterday, to defend this amendment, the socialist deputy Céline Hervieu argued that “Today, one in three young people among those surveyed say they regularly skip meals”.
Students who reduce the portions of their meals
The elected official from Paris, spokesperson for the Socialist Party, draws on a recent study carried out by Ifop for Cop1, a food distribution association created in 2020 to help students. Published on October 17, the study establishes that “Food insecurity remains well anchored in the student population in 2024” and shows this key figure: 36% of the students surveyed admit to having already skipped a meal due to lack of money. It also shows that 58% of young people “adapt their menus with less expensive recipes” or that 43% of them say they are reducing the portions of their meals to save money.
Following the publication of this study, the deputy for France Insoumise, Louis Boyard, rushed to submit a petition on the National Assembly website, calling for the generalization of the one-euro meal in university restaurants ( UK). The elected official from Val-de-Marne estimates his measure at a cost of 60 million euros.
In committee, parliamentarians aired their disagreements. “Why offer a free meal to all students, regardless of family configuration, regardless of parental income? »asked the rapporteur of the finance bill, Thomas Cazenave. The member of the Ensemble pour la République group criticizes a measure “very regressive” et “the most unfair there is”. The other special rapporteur Charles Sitzenstuhl, from the same group, also opposed it: “Meal prices are social or even very social”he justified.
The RN will vote on the device
At a time when the executive is seeking to make savings, the MP insists on “the substantial effort made by public authorities” to finance such a measure. In fact, the cost of a meal in a university restaurant is estimated at eight euros, knowing that it is charged €3.30 for a non-scholarship student and one euro for a scholarship holder. To support the one-euro meal system for all, the rebellious Aurélien Le Coq demanded “the principle of universality of law”which is a “profoundly republican principle which applies in many nos services publics ».
But would this have a real impact on reducing student insecurity? In this same study co-carried out by Ifop and Cop1, it is mentioned that even if university restaurants “offer a potential solution to this food insecurity, only 54% of students attend them regularly”. One in five students justify it, for example, by citing the geographical distance from the university restaurant.
This measure is still far from being applied. Its future will depend on the adoption or not of the finance bill by the National Assembly. The RN deputy Jean-Philippe Tanguy announced that his party “will vote for the one-euro meal plan”. Last February, a bill defending the measure was put to a vote in the chamber. One vote was missing for the device to be adopted.
