One-euro meals for all students

Since Monday 4 May, all students in France with an Izly account [available on request from the government] have been able to eat at university canteens for one euro. This measure will enable many students to eat better at a time of widespread price rises.

The university canteens of Crous [public organisations providing student bursaries, university halls of residence, etc.] already [since Covid lockdown time] offered meals for one euro, but since 2021, this measure has been restricted to students receiving grants and those able to provide evidence of financial hardship.

Behind the veneer of the “great victory for the Socialists” (according to [Socialist Party leader] Olivier Faure), this is a way of making us swallow the bitter pill of Macron’s anti-social and militarist budget. The higher education budget is shrinking in real terms [almost all French universities are public, and directly publicly-funded, with low fees, unlike British universities, which are legally “charities”] and [the government] is cutting housing benefit (APL) and increasing tuition fees for international students.

Crous staff explain that university canteens cannot accommodate more people and that their working conditions, already appalling, are set to worsen. The unions already estimate that there is currently a shortfall of 800 full-time positions.

University canteens have already reduced the portions on plates and trays since inflation picked up again, and this is unlikely to improve.