While it is not common throughout the country, many cities in France are seeing an increasing number of schools not allowing students to enter the school’s cafeteria if their parents are unemployed.
The reasoning behind this policy is that there is not enough space for all children, so those that have parents at home should return home for their lunch break.
Most schools with limited space do not go to this extreme. Instead, they may declare that children of families with two working parents get first priority. If space is exceeded, those that have at least one parent unemployed will have to have lunch at home.
Having lunch at home is not usually a big deal to many young students. Most prefer it. A typical school day goes from 8:30 to 4:30 with a 2-hour break for lunch. My French husband said that when he lived near the school, he enjoyed the days of returning home to his dad and having lunch with him.
It is difficult for me to understand as I always had lunch at school in the US. I loved having lunch with my friends, gossiping and then going outside to play after finishing early. I never knew anyone that went home during lunch break. But then again, school was only 6 hours long with an hour lunch break. In France, students are on campus for 2 more hours than those in the US.
Government officials are taking notice of this trend so change may be coming. Jacques Pélissard, UMP maire (mayor) of Lons-le-Saunier and president of the l’Association des Maires de France (AMF) has said that creating exclusions is a failure, that we need a more constructive approach. So far his solutions to the problem include offering two different lunch services at schools to accommodate all students or extending the school campus.
The map above from lamonde.fr illustrates where the majority of children are denied access to the cafeteria due to unemployed parents. School cafeterias are considered a public service, so denying public services to the public can be considered an illegal act. Not only is it unfair to the students that must go home that prefer to stay at the school, but for the parents who are actively looking for work and must be home at a certain hour to make lunches.
Source:
LeMonde.fr: Ces villes qui restreignent l’accès à la cantine pour les enfants de chômeur
Image Credit: LeMonde.fr
Christine says
Interesting…..when I was in kindergarten and first grade in Illinios, I always walked home for lunch. The only time I went to the cafeteria was when they were serving hamburgers, lol!
French Mamma says
Awe, did you live very close? The elementary school I went to was a 15 minute drive, and away from a residential area. So maybe a reason why most people stayed around was because it wasn’t practical to go home during lunch. My middle school was a short walk from homes, but the people who I knew that lived there still ate at school… but our lunches there were great! That’s when I first started buying school lunches. I became addicted to shrimp poppers! Ooh, and pizza, fries, and ice cream snicker bars. Okay, I’m getting hungry. 🙂
Louise says
Ah, this is a very interesting one for me as we have only just put our daughter in school, she’s been there a month. We were hoping after the October break to put her in for full days, she was introduced slowly to school in the beginning, only going in the morning, which we were told was normal for all new kids but now I feel like she is happy there and could cope with being there longer.
It isn’t a real problem having to go get her every day at 11.30am, as we live a 10 minute walk from the school BUT I think it would be more beneficial for her to be around the other children, integrated in the school system, learning french. (neither myself or my husband speak french) I thought we could just fill in the paperwork and it would be fine to send her for lunches at school…obviously after reading this I am better informed and now realize that things may not be as simple as I thought. (it never is in France, eh??) My husband works, I don’t, but I am planning to take a class at the university,if I have free time but and as you say, having to go and get my daughter every day could put a spanner in the works of that plan….
mmmmmm….
I think school is about so much more than just academics, its becoming more and more apparent that it isn’t in France.
thanks,
Louise