Monday, October 17, 2011

Vegetarian Food Banned in France

One World Day Nov 1st: French Ban Vegetarian and Vegan Meals

Vegetarian and Vegan Meals Banned in France!

EVU! - Vegetarianism / Veganism now made illegal in France!

Nicolas Sarkozy- Nil Point
It seems the nightmare stereotype of Veganism in France treated as treason has become a gruesome reality with a new piece of legislation that makes meat eating law, forcing meals in French Schools, hospitals and old peoples homes to always include meat and animal products.

If you needed any more proof that President of the Republic of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, is not fit for purpose then here it is. At a time when for health and sustainability reasons it's even more important we adopt a plant based lifestyle the French President has made it effectively illegal to live as a vegetarian in France. It's thought to be a move to counteract Paul McCartney's Meat Free Monday initiative that had French Farmers up in arms.

After a law voted last year by the French Parliament(1), similar decrees will be taken soon regarding all forms of catering from kindergarten to hospital, prisons and retirement homes. Vegetarianism will then have effectively been banned for a large part of the population.

A French government order issued on October 2, 2011(2) has decreed that all meals served in school canteens in France must contain animal products, and that meat and fish will be served at a certain minimum frequency. This implies that by law from now on no vegetarian can eat at any public or private school in France.

The European Vegetarian Union EVU say
The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which is binding on member states including France, holds that: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right includes freedom to change religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or in private, to manifest religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.(4)
The public debate regarding animal rights and the moral status of animals is active in France as in many other countries. Citizens are entitled to choose freely where they stand on these issues, and those who believe that they cannot, in conscience, accept to eat animals must not be discriminated against.
A government cannot settle a philosophical, ethical and political debate by restricting the rights of those who disagree with its own positions. For years, the official policy of the French government has been openly hostile to vegetarianism.(5) The French agriculture minister, Bruno Lemaire, declared in January 2010 that the government's aim in determining its public nutritional policy was to defend the French agricultural model and specifically to counter initiatives such as those of Paul McCartney calling for a reduced consumption of meat.(6)
Footnotes:
1. "Law for the modernization of agriculture and fisheries", published on July 27, 2010.

2. Décret n° 2011-1227 du 30 septembre 2011; arrêté du 30 septembre 2011.
3. Position statement of the American Dietetic Association
4. Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, article 10.1
5.An example is the site mangerbouger.fr, where the only nutritional advice given to a teenager contemplating becoming a vegan is "By all means, do not follow that diet!" (www.mangerbouger.fr/pro/IMG/pdf/guide_adolescents-2.pdf, page 11).
6. http://tinyurl.com/FlashLeFigaro

Hopefully now the public will take French Veggie Pride a little more seriously as it seems French vegetarians and vegans really are an oppressed and persecuted minority in France.


www.1worldday.org

10 comments:

phreak9 said...

I USED TO WANT TO MOVE TO FRANCE. NOT SO MUCH NOW.

Slocamom said...

I am a lifelong vegetarian and I am sad for this legislation, but please, no where does it say that vegetarians and vegans are acting illegally. There is no legislation that says each human in France MUST eat meat every meal. Veg/Vegans still have the option not to eat meat/fish. This kind of drama just makes vegans and vegetarians look foolish...please think before you post.

Anonymous said...

I'm french. After verification I can say that article is entirely false. Nothing is right, the law text quoted exist but it's about something different ! This is disinformation !!!

Anonymous said...

I'm french. After verification I can say that article is entirely false. Nothing is right, the law text quoted exist but it's about something different ! This is disinformation !!!

Imre said...

How philantropic! let's just fuck it up for the leftist veggie opposition people and the muslim population AT THE SAME TIME (I'm sure Nicolas didn't mean halal meat...)

Vegan Chef said...

Surely if you agree and verified law exists, and that law says that meat and fish must be part of meal in schools and soon hospitals then how is it disinformation?

Vega Rum said...

It's not disinformation :

- http://www.l214.com/restauration-collective-scolaire
- http://www.icdv.info/index.php?post/2011/10/05/Communique-%3A-Manger-les-animaux-devient-une-obligation-legale-!
- http://www.euroveg.eu/lang/en/news/press/20101014.php : (English Link)
- http://www.jacques-boutault.fr/article/1401
- http://www.l214.com/fichiers/pdf/CP_cantines.pdf

Barb said...

After reading this news, I was curious to know how many cases of BSE (mad cow) there have been in France and what the stats on CJD were among people in France so I asked my friend Terry Singletary who's been researching this issue fo some 14 years...here's what he sent me:

see steady increase in sporadic CJD in France ;

http://www.invs.sante.fr/display/?doc=publications/mcj/donnees_mcj.html

Vet. Res. 35 (2004) 349-362 DOI: 10.1051/vetres:2004016

The unrecognised French BSE epidemic Virginie Supervie and Dominique Costagliola

INSERM EMI 0214, 56 bd Vincent Auriol, BP 335, 75625 Paris Cedex 13, France

(Received 1 October 2003; accepted 20 February 2004)

Abstract - In France, implementation of systematic screening programs in 2000, as a complement to the mandatory reporting of animals with clinical signs of BSE (passive surveillance), revealed certain limitations of the mandatory system. Indeed, systematic screening showed that some BSE cases were not detected by the clinical surveillance system, implying considerable BSE case under-reporting throughout the epidemic. As the most likely explanation for variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) is exposure to the aetiologic agent of BSE, it is essential to reconstruct the French BSE epidemic pattern accounting for this under-reporting. We estimated age- and year-specific incidence rates of BSE by using a back-calculation method. This approach relies on the principle that the number of clinical BSE cases is the consequence of the number of BSE-infected animals after a known incubation time, defined as the time between infection and clinical onset. We generalized this model to take into account epidemiological characteristics of BSE, such as French cattle mortality, BSE case reporting probability, and age-dependent susceptibility and/or exposure to the BSE agent. We confirmed that the average BSE incubation period is five years and that the peak risk of bovine infection occurs between 6 and 12 months of age. The results also showed that the proportion of underreporting is the most influential parameter in the model, and that BSE was substantially underreported until rapid tests were introduced. Indeed, only 103 BSE cases were detected by passive surveillance up to June 2000, while we estimated that there was 301 200 (95% confidence interval (CI) [27 600-837 600]) cattle infected by the BSE agent. Despite uncertainty over the beginning of the epidemic, we showed that the French BSE epidemic in the late 1980s was completely undetected, and only the second wave, after 1990, was observed.

snip...

Finally, modelling indicates substantial under-reporting until active surveillance was introduced. This could explain why more cases of BSE were reported among cattle born after the MBM ban than before it. Because of this under-reporting, the French BSE epidemic in the late 1980s was completely undetected, and only the second wave, after 1990, was observed. Also, exposure of the French population to the BSE agent via French bovine products was not negligible compared to exposure of the French population via the imports of British bovine products.

Key words: epidemiology / BSE / under-reporting / vCJD / back-calculation

http://www.vetres.org/index.php?option=com_article&access=doi&doi=10.1051/vetres:2004016&Itemid=129

http://www.vetres.org/articles/vetres/pdf/2004/03/V4008.pdf

Volume 13, Number 6—June 2007
Research
Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and Spatial Analysis of the Feed Industry

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/13/6/06-1169_article.htm

Vegan Chef said...

Barb - Thanks so much for that - I repost it!

Margaret said...

Amazing! I hope this is not true!
Very scary stuff!
http://www.veganrawfood.net