Apartheid Alimentaire

A French term (“dietary apartheid”) used to criticize the provision of “secular” school meals for religiously observant students in some parts of France.

Exploring the challenges of accommodating Islam into public policy, The Economist reported:

Lyon council is the first in France to introduce in schools what it defensively calls a “secular menu.” Its meatless lunches are a neat compromise. Under France’s secular doctrine of laïcité it would be unthinkable to make full halal meals; a gesture to “vegetarians” got round a problem that needed facing in a department where 300,000 Muslims (19 percent of the population) live.

Lyon has offered non-pork school meals since the 1960’s but, as a Lyon council representative explained: “When in certain neighborhoods up to 40 percent of children are not eating the main meal, because they fear it may conflict with their beliefs, we are faced with a real public health problem.”

However, the feminist group Regards de Femmes argued that secular menus legitimized religious claims that certain foods were impure, and asked ”In favoring dietary apartheid, isn’t the town of Lyon … organizing the fragmentation of the community?”