Comment: France's obsession with eating dead animals must end

For the last few years I have been leading a regular university role play exercise in English about French food and it requires at least one student to promote vegetarian options. 

I always hear a collective sigh go around the room when I ask for a volunteer. 

“Do we have to?” they mutter under their breaths. 

In response I launch into a prepared spiel: “You are marketing students,” I remind them. “There are lots of vegetarians in the world – maybe not many around here – and there are profits to be made in catering for them.” 

“Not many around here” is an understatement. 

I live on the edge of Gascony, where eating meat is almost a religion. Confit de canard and foie gras are sources of pride. To suggest that such products are somehow undesirable or unethical is to make enemies quickly. 

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It is not unusual to hear people from rural families ridicule vegetarians – or even spit venom at them as if they were a subversive collective movement: “Who do they think they are,” they demand rhetorically, “these fussy eaters! They don’t know what is good for them. They don’t know how to enjoy life. They scorn our traditional way of life.” Etc. 

'Options include meat and more meat'

A few years ago I decided to give up eating meat. I am not sure I can justify my dietary stance – I am certainly not ready to go vegan – but I am happy with my choice. 

The French people around me, however, almost universally find it baffling and they find it an endlessly rich source of jokes. 

You get the impression that to be French is to be a full-on meat devourer.

Our annual village fete involves a four-hour meal in which the menu consists of meat and more meat. I do not dare suggest to the organising committee that they offer a meat-free alternative. 

Once, I asked a professional caterer to provide something decent for vegetarians and he served up a plate of re-heated frozen vegetables. 

Too many school canteens, meanwhile, put the emphasis on meaty dishes and give no serious thought to people who do not like or do not want to eat the derivatives of dead animals.

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Will vegetarianism ever be a respectable option in France? 

One day will all restaurant menus proudly serve up something exquisite for us, and not merely agree to serve a salad without the slides of ham? 

This is not about condemning meat-eating or criticising Gascon or French culinary culture. I am just calling for variety and creativity in the food industry. 

Things are changing. In the big cities the pace is faster than elsewhere. There, you find vegetarian restaurants and shops serving communities of conscientious people who believe there are health, social and environmental benefits to giving up meat. 

In smaller cities and market towns, the signs of change are less obvious, but even our local supermarket now sells a range of meat-free bacon, sausages and burgers. 

I cannot be the only consumer that walks past the chicken and chops fridges. If the shop wants my money, it will have to give me more of what I want.

France, I predict, will change as part of the planetary realisation that meat production is an expensive environmental luxury. 

Meat will become less of an obsession and will once again become the treat it was until the era of factory farming. 

Restaurants will see the sense in providing options to their customers, marking ingredients on menus so that anyone who does have particular dietary requirements – whether for health or ethical motivations – can make informed choices.