Wishing to warn about the impact of livestock and meat consumption on climate change, an environmentalist MP sparked a fiery controversy in France at the end of the holidays by claiming that the barbecue was “a symbol of virility”.
An unfortunate finalist in her party’s primary for the presidential election in April 2022, Sandrine Rousseau launched the most hotly debated subject on radio or television at the end of August, in this country renowned for its traditional fried entrecôtes, beef bourguignon or barbecues in the summer.
On Saturday, while participating in a round table in Grenoble (center-east), she wanted to draw attention to the consequences on the climate of excessive consumption of red meat, believing that it was necessary to “change mentality so that eating a steak cooked on a barbecue is no longer a symbol of virility”. What trigger the controversy.
“When the grotesque reaches its climax … Stop these delusions!”, notably reacted on Twitter the deputy Les Républicains (right) and candidate for the presidency of his party, Eric Ciotti.
“Women consume twice as much meat as men,” insisted again on Monday, based on studies, the ecofeminist MP (from the Europe Ecologie-Les Verts – EELV party).
“Reducing the quantity of meat is the gesture that is the most effective in the face of climate change (…); it is the most effective gesture, even in front of the car, ”she added, questioned on the LCI channel.
“We experienced for the first time this summer the concrete effects of this climate change and well what do we do? What are we ready to do?” she asked. “Meat is one of those individual gestures that have an immediate and massive effect” and “those who resist massively (to the question + are you ready to do without meat +, editor’s note), they are men”, a-t she lamented.
“Tackling Virilism”
In her televised intervention, Ms. Rousseau cited the book by Nora Bouazzouni, author of “Steaksisme” published in 2021, which explores our attitudes towards the consumption of food. The author believes that food is not immune to “gendered injunctions” which “shape gender and reinforce sexist stereotypes, with real consequences on the planet and the health of the women and men who suffer from them”.
“Sociology explains to us that there is a very strong difference between the sexes” in the relationship to meat, added Clémentine Autain, deputy La France insoumise (LFI-radical left).
“Women eat half as much red meat as men… And the people who decide to become vegetarians are mostly women,” she argued on the BFMTV news channel.
And, “if we want to move towards equality, we must indeed tackle virilism”, she continued.
The deputy Rassemblement national (extreme right), Julien Odoul, immediately tweeted: “Bravo Clémentine Autain! There are physiological differences between men and women. The muscle mass of men has led them, since the dawn of time, to consume more meat (proteins) than women. It’s not “virilism”, it’s just nature!
The summer of 2022 was marked in France by record temperatures, drought and fires. The climate issue has become even more acute in the political debate at the start of the school year, and the executive has called in particular for “sobriety”.
Believing that we must go further, elected environmentalists have considered banning private swimming pools; and the secretary general of the EELV party, Julien Bayou, called for “banning private jets”, which are terribly polluting.