Pork or nothing: The dilemma of pupils in a school in France

A school in the village of Arveyres in the Gironde region of south west France has declared that from this month onwards, it would no longer offer meat alternatives to children who did not eat pork. This decision was brought about after the mayor of Arveyres, Benoit Gheysen, made a statement to AFP that the cost of providing alternative meals was expensive and yet most of the food was going to waste. He said that many times the children who did not take the substitute diner complained as well and left the pork, leaving the staff distressed on the amount of food going to waste.

The mayor has however, vowed that the children would get all the protein they needed because vegetables, lentils and salads would be offered whenever pork was on the menu. He also believes that the school in Arveyres is not the only one in France that is facing the same dilemma; he added that pork was served no more than once a week.

Since pork is forbidden under Jewish and Muslim dietary laws, some parents have offered to pack for their children lunch from home. This gesture has however, been brushed away by the mayor who says that it would be logistically hard to implement and ethically shocking.

There will be 30 children out of 180 who will face the effects of this change.

In France, the issue of halal meat is often a controversial topic which has been used as a political football especially with approaching elections.

Before last year’s presidential elections, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the anti-immigration National Front party launched a row when she claimed that all meat from abattoirs in the region of Paris was prepared using Islamic halal traditions hence misleading non-Muslim consumers in the capital.

Wading into the war, former president Nicolas Sarkorzy suggested that meat would be labeled to tell consumers how the animal was slaughtered, but the Muslims and Jews rejected the idea fearing it would lead to their being stigmatized.

At that time, Claude Gueant, former Interior Minister under Sarkozy said that halal meat was one reason why the government opposed Francois Hollande’s plan to give foreign residents the vote in French local elections. He said that as an example we don’t want foreign local councilors making halal meat obligatory in school canteens. Hitting back however, the French Council of Muslim Faith slammed what it said was the use of Muslims as scapegoats in the election campaign.

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