The Mabillon university restaurant, in Paris, February 9, 2021. -

Jeanne Accorsini / SIPA

  • To respond to student precariousness, aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic, the government has set up, since the end of January, meals at 1 euros in university restaurants.

  • Relayed on Twitter, the photo of a bottle of water, a yogurt and a little more than 200 grams of beef ravioli was however published to denounce the meager portion of food sold to students in this context. 

  • If this photo was taken in a university restaurant in Metz, the Crous Lorraine evokes a possible “exceptional manufacturing anomaly”.

This is one of the government's flagship measures to help students hard hit by the health and economic crisis of Covid-19: the introduction, since the end of January 2021, of meals at 1 euro in the various restaurants. universities in France - although this device was launched in September for scholarship students only.

The Minister of Higher Education, Frédérique Vidal, was thus delighted, a few days ago, to count "500,000 meals [at 1 euro] taken away by students since January 25".

This Tuesday, during a visit to a Parisian Crous (Regional Center for University and School Works), she congratulated herself on "seeing the students once again having lunch together in university restaurants".

However, a tweet posted by an Internet user on February 8 has something to question the qualifier of "meal".

“3 hours of queuing at the Crous de Metz for this meal which weighs 200 g.

Frédérique Vidal and the government, are you kidding us with your 1 euro meals?

», Indignant a user of the social network in a message accompanied by the photo of a small box of ravioli, a yogurt and a bottle of water.

And the author of the tweet added in the process: “This meal, with yogurt, is 400 kcal.

For a man, the recommended intake is 2400 kcal per day.

It's just outrageous.

"

3 hours of queue at the Crous de Metz for this meal which weighs 200g.

@gouvernementFR @VidalFrederique are you kidding us with your 1 euro meals?

pic.twitter.com/ESsHUFRrRv

- Freedom, Equality, Flashball (@ Rebelle1789871) February 8, 2021

FAKE OFF

"In Metz, we normally have a fairly large university restaurant, with four islands, which offers meals with starter, main course and dessert for 3.30 euros, explains to

20 Minutes

the author of the photo, Florian, student. in the Grand-Est region.

But it closed for the second confinement and, since then, we had to go to another university restaurant nearby, which is no longer the cafeteria for employees, where we were entitled to paninis or sandwiches with a compote and a fruit for the same price.

"

“But since the meals have gone to 1 euro, there are a lot more people, and each one takes two meals, not one for lunch and one for the evening, but just for lunch, since it is not sufficient for lunch.

Yesterday, one of the islets of the large university restaurant reopened, but they do nothing other than these beef ravioli, pizza slices - when we had whole pizzas before -, paninis and sandwiches, and trays of Basque chicken, with two or three ends fighting in a duel, ”he laments.

Florian emphasizes that only four people are assigned to serve the “approximately 500 people” who come to have a meal during “the midday rush”.

A meal consisting of pasta, a sandwich or a slice of pizza

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, the Crous Lorraine indicates having "set up meals at 1 euro in an exceptional sanitary context" and "strengthened [its] take-away service (VAE), the only current possibility of distribution to ensure [its] public service mission "

“To date, VAE structures across the country offer packages for 1 euro, twice a day.

They include a dish (dish of the day, sandwich, panini, wrap, slice of pizza or even homemade pasta) as well as a dessert (compote, yogurt or fruit) and a bottle of water, ”he continues.

Crous Lorraine estimates that the student behind the photo may have been the victim of “an exceptional manufacturing anomaly”: “Our homemade pasta is sold in portions ranging from 250 to 300 g (i.e. on average 190 kcal per 100 g + 125 kcal for a yogurt = 695 kcal).

This represents 1/3 of the daily calorie intake on a basis of 2000 kcal.

"

If Florian believes for his part that the ravioli in question seem rather to be "frozen products to which sauce and a few grams of cheese have been added", the Crous Lorraine indicates that it is "always listening to students if they notice an anomaly ”of this type and having“ of course alerted [its] manufacturing teams to increase their vigilance.

"

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