French Parents Are Upset That Their Kids’ School Served This One Food During Lunch

No one does outrage over food crimes quite like the French, as the latest scandal to hit a Paris school district proves. A town hall in the 18th arrondissement of France’s capital city has been forced to apologize for serving schoolchildren a lunch so outrageous that parents mounted a campaign against the catering company. What food was so offensive that it caused this response?

The children were served pre-packaged sandwiches.

That’s right. One mother known only as “Anne” is quoted in The Telegraph describing the meal as, “an industrial, pre-packed triangular sandwich of the kind sold at motorway service stations.” Alongside this monstrosity, children were served bread and butter, a slice of watermelon, an apple, and tomatoes. Which, frankly, sounds pretty healthy — but even this selection of fruit was deemed unacceptable. According to Anne, the tomatoes weren’t even organic and local, as had been promised. They were from Spain. This is just the latest issue the parents have raised against the caterers.

The Telegraph reports that last year, a parents’ association wrote a petition against Sogeres catering company, who supply lunches for 14,000 pupils in the arrondissement, arguing that the food their kids were eating contained ingredients like hydrogenated fat, sugar, preservatives, and dyes. Parents were also angry that meals were being made in advance and then reheated.

The town hall apologized and tried to explain.

A spokesperson for the town hall explained that the reason the children were served what was described as “a special picnic meal,” according to Anne, was because the schools had been closed on Thursday and Friday, meaning Monday’s meal had to be delivered the Wednesday before, so making something fresh was impossible. (He also apologized for the packaging the sandwiches came in, noting that the school was trying to cut down on how much plastic it used.)

If this outrage over what seems like a pretty healthy lunch sounds dramatic, check out what Parisian kids normally eat.

#Paris school menu (3+ years old) is gourmet & features #organic products. Can I come for lunch? 😉 @mairiedu13 #food #France #green pic.twitter.com/PCG9dN7TlE

— Mary Winston Nicklin (@MaryWNicklin) March 22, 2017

The Telegraph notes that the French education ministry requests that schools serve kids a three-course meal — YES, really — that includes a main, a side, and a dairy product.

Here’s a pretty visual:

It looks delicious:

Seriously, this is making us jealous.

It’s not just us who are starting to think our school lunches were lacking a certain something:

Every September there's an influx of stories and photo slideshows of what kids eat for school lunch around the world and it's always like yogurt and lamb pilaf except in the US, where it's just a brown paper bag stuffed with cabanossi and Takis.

— zac (@raining_thots) September 5, 2018

And it’s not just France that is showing up the U.S. when it comes to feeding schoolchildren. Italy is loading up on delicious carbs:

This one from Japan looks filling and fresh:

In South Korea, school kids can get kimchi, fried sweet potato, and pineapple:

Sweden is really going in for the Omega-3 with all this salmon:

Brazilian students are served plenty of beans and rice. Sign us up!

In Finland, school lunch is free — and it still looks good.

Kindergartners in this Barcelona school eat better than we do. That’s pan-fried veal!

In fairness, not everyone thinks American school lunches are terrible!

However, Warwick Public School in Rhode Island got into trouble in early May when they announced that children whose family owed money on their lunch account would only be served a sunflower seed butter and jelly sandwich, while everyone else could choose from other options.

Rhode Islander starts fundraiser to pay school lunch debt after district restricts food options for those who owe https://t.co/66V0XAgubv

— Newsweek (@Newsweek) May 9, 2019

It’s not the first time this has happened, and it’s provoking a lot of feelings.

At 10 years old, being raised by a single mother, my school refused to feed me due to a “school lunch debt.” After a teacher advocated for me they offered only a stale cheese sandwich and water. As an education major, looking back on this moment is ridiculous. We need reform. https://t.co/jaPyIqMZIb

— lil gooby (@JillWhoReads) June 3, 2019

Luckily, help came from an unexpected source: yogurt makers Chobani offered to pay off $47,650 of the outstanding $77,000. As you can imagine, it’s making people love them even more…

Just in case you’re still worried about those French kids and their irate parents, the town hall promised to make amends. The spokesperson said that from September on, the children will receive only fresh sandwiches. Scandal over… for now…