Like the Defender of Rights, Rodrigo Arenas, co-president of the CIPF, calls on Europe 1 to put an end to discriminations of access to the canteen.

INTERVIEW

In France, for a student to eat in the canteen, his family must on average pay 400 euros per year. As a result, 40% of children from disadvantaged families do not eat it, compared to 17% of students from higher socio-professional categories. In a report released Thursday, Defender Jacques Toubon calls for an end to discrimination in access to the school canteen. "The question of free, it is a matter of choice of society" pleads on Europe 1 Rodrigo Arenas, co-president of the Federation of Parents' Councils (CIPF).

"A question of balance with the class"

"A child, regardless of his family, regardless of the territory in which he lives, must have free access to quality food for lunch, because it is a question of balance with the class", he argues at the microphone of Matthew Belliard.

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Currently, school restaurants remain the site of social fractures. "This comes out in several ways: there are cities in which the prices of access to the canteen are quite prohibitive for families, especially those who are in the most precarious social situations, especially in small towns, where the social assistance is not enough, "notes Rodrigo Arenas. "This also raises a question of built-in. Sometimes, the costs involved in the construction of school canteens are quite huge, so cities are reluctant to increase the size of canteens," he says.

One vegetarian meal per week

Thus, the prices are not the same according to the territories. Quality no more. Last April, the government announced that one vegetarian meal a week would be introduced as soon as the next school year in some 10,000 communes. CIPF, with Greenpeace and the Vegetarian Association of France, wrote to all mayors to inform them, reveals Rodrigo Arenas exclusively on Europe 1. Such a measure should, in particular, lower the cost of the bill.

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In France, between 5 and 8.8 million people live below the poverty line, established by the Observatoire des inégalités at 50% of the median income (ie 855 euros per month for a single person) and 60% by the INSEE (1,026 euros).