Elected officials propose to tax foods with " poor nutritional quality " and push the food industry to design less sweet, salty and fatty dishes, in a Senate report released Thursday.
Based on the observation that the French generally consume too many calories and too much meat with regard to nutritional needs, their health and that of the planet, a report by the delegation to the prospective of the Senate advocates a diet " more sober and more vegetable "
The rapporteurs - Senator LREM from Gironde Françoise Cartron and Senator PS from Finistère Jean-Luc Fichet - suggest in particular to " clean up the food supply by encouraging or forcing the reformulation of recipes for industrial dishes (limitation of salt, sugar or saturated fat) ".
Tax poor nutritional quality
They also propose to “ tax, on the model of the soda tax, certain foods because of their poor nutritional quality (for example those classified D or E in the Nutriscore) and use the product of these taxes to finance education actions nutritional or to distribute “healthy food” vouchers, along the lines of an “energy” voucher, allowing for example to buy fresh fruit or vegetables ”.
Beverages containing added sugars have been taxed since 2012 in France. Taxation was adjusted according to the sugar level in 2018 in order to encourage manufacturers to reduce this rate and better fight obesity.
The information report, entitled " Towards sustainable food: a major health, social, territorial and environmental challenge for France ", was adopted unanimously by the forward-looking delegation on Thursday. " There is undoubtedly matter to legislate " to improve the receipts of the industrialists, estimated Jean-Luc Fichet during a press point in videoconference.
The latter were not interviewed by the delegation because they " wanted to make a presentation of what they were doing " without entering into a " dialogue ", underlined Françoise Cartron.
Senators make a total of 20 proposals, such as reorienting the common agricultural policy (CAP) from " aid allocated according to area to aid proportional to agricultural work (to take into account the increase in the workload during the transition from conventional to agroecological practices) ". The premium for the largest number of hectares is an " aberration ", said Jean-Luc Fichet, who pleads to " abandon monocultures ".