Students returned to classes this week, after the All Saints’ Day vacation. And many of them are unable to eat well on a daily basis.
According to an Ifop survey, published last September, one in two students skips meals for financial reasons. And one in three is ready to request food aid. You only have to see the lines getting longer at distributions to understand that young people, especially those who live far from their families, eat poorly and can go hungry.
Benjamin Flohic, co-founder and president of the Cop1 Solidarités Etudiantes association, does not hide his concern: “The number of students who contact us has never increased as much as in the last year. We are already struggling to help all those we help today, we are deploying considerable efforts in more than 15 cities throughout France .” Cop1 distributes 15,000 meals per day in the form of parcels, with fruits and vegetables and fresh produce, and organizes breakfasts in front of the faculties.
Price frozen for 4 years
For its part, the CROUS, the organization dedicated to student life and the management of university restaurants, establishes the same observation. In Toulouse, for example, the beneficiaries of the 1 euro meal – these are students on scholarships or supported by social services – increased from 45% at the start of the 2022 school year to 55% this year. Dominique Froment, general director of the CROUS of Toulouse, also notes the precariousness:
“We opened the catering in the evening to enable us to support students with 2 meals at 1 euro per day, for scholarship holders and precarious workers. In addition, since September 2023, we have granted one-off aid to 122 non-scholarship students , who are having difficulty financing their meals.”
The CROUS in Toulouse serves an average of 17,000 meals per day. The normal price is 3.30 euros, a price frozen for 4 years, but that seems not to be enough. Several student associations and unions are now calling for a total overhaul of the scholarship system.