Purchasing power, unemployment, health, terrorism, climate and… foie gras. The star food of the end of the year feasts has made a sensational irruption in recent weeks, on the menu of essential themes of the presidential election, several candidates such as Valérie Pécresse or Eric Zemmour ardently defending this product resulting from the force-feeding of geese and ducks.
There will be a lot of #Foie gras at the Pécresse’s at Christmas responds @vpecresse at @adevillaines (@LeHuffPost).
And about animal welfare, candidate LR is committed to putting real control in slaughterhouses.
@ France3tv #dimpol pic.twitter.com/50IKReJqEH
– DimancheEnPolitique (@DimPolitique) December 12, 2021
For several months, the animal rights association PETA has publicly encouraged municipalities to abandon foie gras. Jeanne Barseghian (EELV), mayor of Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin), announced on November 25 to the NGO no longer to place public orders for foie gras since taking office in 2020. The Alsatian capital is thus following the movement initiated by Grenoble since 2014, Lyon and Besançon since 2020 as well as Villeurbanne since May 2021. “This is neither a call for boycott, nor a prohibition measure”, procrastinates Grégory Doucet (EELV), mayor of Lyon, in a column published in The JDD December 12, in the face of the excitement caused by this banishment.
No call for a boycott, therefore, but a measure symbolically strong enough to push the political class to react, particularly during an election campaign. While Nicolas Dupont-Aignan denounced the “sectarianism” and the “dogmatism” environmentalists, the far-right candidate Eric Zemmour split a tweet asking the Greens to eat “whatever they see fit” and leave “France be France”. On the same line, the LR candidate, Valérie Pécresse, associated the fact “to be French” and the art of consuming the food of discord.
On the left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon regretted on December 17, on LCP, a practice which “gives a punitive and aggressive view of political ecology.” Like Fabien Roussel (PCF) and Marine Le Pen (RN), Anne Hidalgo has not taken a public position on the issue of foie gras. Contacted by franceinfo, its campaign team would like to remind “attachment” from the PS candidate to “gastronomic excellence and French culinary traditions”. Ian Brossat, spokesperson for the Communist candidate, assures us that he is not in favor of the ban on foie gras either. “Besides, none of our cities applies it”, he clarifies.
In this chain of reactions, the ecologist Yannick Jadot was asked to position himself. Does he support the initiative of elected officials from his political side? “Foie gras is a luxury product. I eat it, foie gras, but artisanal foie gras”, defended the candidate of Europe Ecology-The Greens, December 13 on franceinfo. Alexis Braud, his spokesperson, justifies the decision of the town halls by a need for budgetary exemplarity: “100% of people do not want their taxes to go to luxurious buffets”.
The language elements jostle, and sometimes contradict each other, to justify a political decision taken at the local level. “Yannick Jadot is annoyed, he who wishes to embody a broader, more consensual ecology” than that defended by the mayors and represented by Sandrine Rousseau, analyzes Daniel Boy, political scientist specializing in political ecology. Relieved of the imperative of gathering, the unfortunate finalist of the green primary thus split a sarcastic tweet extolling the merits of the “false fat”, name given to the vegetable imitation of foie gras.
Yannick Jadot finds himself in an uncomfortable political position, with the fear of offending opinion by holding a speech on foie gras deemed too radical. “There is an old conflict between rural areas and environmentalists. When we analyze the electoral map, the movement attracts mainly in the big cities. There is almost no environmental vote in rural areas, but a lot of ‘environmental issues are linked to agriculture and rurality “, underlines the political scientist.
Whether we are for the consumption of foie gras, for or against its ban, this eagerness of politicians to position themselves should be analyzed in light of the electoral issue. According to an Ifop survey published in January 2021, 84% of French people consider the protection of animals important and 69% consider that politicians do not defend animals well enough. This theme could weigh in the vote next April. While in December 2011, only 29% of those polled said they wanted to vote for a candidate based on their animal welfare program during the 2012 presidential election, they were 47% to answer this same question favorably in September 2021. , according to an Ifop poll for the Woopets site.
“The animal cause is an important subject, in particular for the electorate of the National Rally, and including for the most distant fringes of politics”, explains Paul Cébille, in charge of studies at the political-news pole of Ifop. Although aware of the issue, the majority of French people are not ready to stop consuming foie gras. A survey carried out in November by the CSA institute for the Interprofessional Committee of Foie Gras Palmipeds (Cifog) revealed that 75% of those questioned planned to consume it during the holidays. “The relationship of the French to farm animals is quite distant”, tries to analyze Paul Cébille.
There is nothing absurd about this contradiction, according to political scientist Daniel Boy. “When we come to specific animal welfare issues such as foie gras, things get complicated.”
“No longer consuming foie gras would mean depriving yourself of something. It is no longer just a question of expressing an abstract idea.”
Daniel Boy, political scientist specializing in political ecologyto franceinfo
This is all the difficulty that politicians encounter in positioning themselves. Moreover, candidates like Yannick Jadot, Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who claim a concern for the animal cause, have not however taken the party to defend the anti-foie gras approach of environmental mayors.
The strength of the symbol in political communication also plays a role in this arbitration. The consumption of foie gras is mainly associated with moments of joy. “It is very difficult for the candidates to defend a measure which is unanimously considered as an attack on the good life”, according to Daniel Boy. “At Christmas time, foie gras is part of our culture and our heritage”, defends Germinal Peiro, president of the Dordogne departmental council and co-signer of the forum “Let us be proud of our foie gras and our artisans”, alongside 55 other elected officials from Périgord. In France, the food is also recognized “protected cultural and gastronomic heritage” since 2006 (article 654-27-1 of the Rural Code).
Part of the heritage, is this product resulting from force-feeding inseparable from the French identity? The right-wing and far-right candidates for the presidential election are summoning patriotism in the face of a supposed environmental threat which would try to change mores. “Identity means ‘identical’ to what we knew yesterday. But, in fact, a culture is not immutable. This is an utterly reactionary myth.”, estimates Jean Viard, sociologist specializing in the rural world and author of the book The revolution we expected has arrived (editions of L’Aube, 2021). According to the researcher, the debate refers to deeper conflicts. “The consumption of meat and foie gras has long been a symbol of strength and political power, popular emancipation. And there, an active minority arrives and makes us feel guilty, it does not pass.”
Foie gras therefore left the kitchen to become a political marker., a subject on which candidates are expected and must position themselves. This change is not to everyone’s liking. “The controversy is completely disproportionate, regrets Ian Brossat, spokesperson for Fabien Roussel (PCF). “IThere are enough subjects which divide the French at the moment that we do not go to organize a civil war on foie gras. “