Currently, 13% of children enrolled in priority education network (REP) * arrive at school hungry. On the strength of this observation, the State wants to ramp up in 2020 the canteen to one euro and free breakfasts at school, two devices based on volunteering launched in 2019 as part of the poverty plan announced in September 2018 by Emmanuel Macron.
The Minister of National Education Jean-Michel Blanquer and the Secretary of State for Solidarity Christelle Dubos on Sunday welcomed in a press release "the good results of the implementation in 2019 of (these) two measures".
Budget doubled compared to 2019
Free breakfasts, served to 110,000 kindergarten and elementary students from disadvantaged areas last year, slightly more than the objective set at 100,000, should concern 200,000 students in 2020 for a budget of 12 million euros, doubled compared to 2019.
Schools must be located in a REP (priority education network), REP + or political areas of the city or in certain rural areas.
The 1 euro canteen enters kindergarten
For the one-euro canteen, which will be extended to kindergartens, the annual budget of 5 million euros is renewed. In 2019, this system benefited 8,000 students from poor rural communities, who cannot afford social tariffs.
The one-euro canteen provides funding for part of the meals served if the municipality implements progressive pricing consisting of at least three tranches, the lowest tranche being one euro maximum per meal and per child.
"We had to convince and listen to local elected officials and at the end of the year, we saw an acceleration of the implementation of the canteen to one euro," said the entourage of Christelle Dubos. "The objective is that 40,000 students will benefit from it by 2020," said Jean-Michel Blanquer in the Journal du dimanche.
Commissioners in each region
The poverty commissioners, appointed to the regional prefects, are responsible for ensuring the deployment of these two measures throughout the French territory and for supporting elected officials, communities or territorial actors who wish to implement them. Particularly concerned are small rural communities which, for many, do not have the means to finance this measure.
Municipalities had not waited for the government plan. In the Hauts-de-Seine, for example, 27 municipalities out of 36 municipalities had already set up prices equivalent to or less than € 1 per meal for the lowest family quotients
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* REP + concerns isolated districts or sectors which experience the greatest concentrations of social difficulties. The PWRs are more socially mixed but the social difficulties are more significant than those of colleges and schools located outside priority education.