"Does anyone want to finish my blanquette?"
“At the table of 5th 5, it laughs loudly, this Monday noon.
Mask under the chin, we carry each other, we remake the world, we prick the neighbor's plate.
We spit.
"It's our time of freedom on a day when we have to wear the mask for eight hours", summarizes, from the next table, Zélie, one of the 200 half-boarding students of the Colonel-Fabien college , in Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis).
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Covid-19: in the canteen, all the ingredients to be contaminated
Despite the strict health protocol put in place in the dining rooms, this time of freedom is the focus of all attention, while the rate of Covid-19 positivity goes up sharply among those under 18.
“What we know is that 44% of infected children are infected by other adults in the family unit, but what about the remaining 56%?
asks Christophe Batard, pediatrician in Vincennes (Val-de-Marne) and member of the French Association for Ambulatory Pediatrics.
I don't see how the canteen wouldn't represent a large percentage.
In what other places do you not wear a mask and talk loudly, spitting for more than thirty minutes?
He himself withdrew his two teenagers aged 14 and 16 from the canteen.
This midday, in Montreuil, Covid-19 protocol requires, it is first the 6th grade students who will eat, followed by the 5th grade, then the 4th and the 3rd.
"We make them lunch by level to limit the mixing between students: it is the number 1 instruction of the protocol", summarizes Laurent Kaufmann, the principal.
The tables of 8 have become tables of 4, there is hydroalcoholic gel at the entry and exit.
“The watchword is above all to adapt, permanently,” admits the owner.
Ventilation, the nightmare of college students
The students are aware of the risk.
"We know that the canteen is a place where you can catch the virus," confirms Noélya, 14 years old.
She gives an example: “There I take the pot of water.
If my neighbor does the same, we share our germs, even if we washed our hands… there is no such thing as zero risk.
The neighbor in question is Stivi, also 14 years old.
Grinding his veal in sauce, he reminds his comrade that he has "already had the Covid-19".
“I had a little fever, that's all.
My real fear is catching it here and passing it on to my parents or my grandparents, ”the teenager in the tracksuit worries.
This is not the only one.
Sitting two tables away, face to face - the staggered distribution recommended by the government being "impossible" to set up - Camille and Laura, 11, discuss the risks of the dining hall.
“Just before the Christmas holidays, my parents didn't want me to go to the canteen.
In college, yes, but not at noon.
Because we were supposed to spend the holidays with my grandmother right after, ”says Camille.
Two days, before the holidays, she went home for lunch.
“At Grandmother's, I put on the mask and we ventilated a lot,” she still remembers.
The management makes lunch classes by level, but the canteen is nevertheless very full.
LP / Olivier Lejeune
Moreover, ventilation has become a nightmare for middle school students in Montreuil when it is 3 ° C outside.
"However, this remains one of the most effective means of reducing the risk of the virus spreading through aerosols", confirms Bertrand Maury, researcher at the University of Paris-Saclay, who confirms that the canteen is "a
priori
dangerous place In terms of contamination.
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Sitting near the exit, Martina and Paloma shiver: the salmon paupiette has failed to warm them.
“It's very cold, even in the classroom.
It's a little hard to open in the middle of winter, we have to keep our coats on, sometimes even to eat, ”moan the two teenagers, for whom social distancing seems a concept… rather vague.
For their part, Claire and Thomas, two of the eight supervisors this afternoon, admit the difficulties of the exercise: “If we wanted a protocol applied to the letter, we would need one pawn per student!
"
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Covid: is the risk of contamination really greater outside of school?
Additional resources, this is also what would like, in an ideal world under Covid, Hubert Salaün, spokesperson for the Peep, association of parents of pupils, himself the father of a high school student from Oise.
“In my children's establishment, 47% of parents say that the canteen worries.
We could open classrooms to eat or provide packed lunches instead, ”he says, joined on this subject by Guislaine David, representative Snuipp-FSU, the majority union among primary teachers.
But both recognize it: “It would require more staff, which is complicated.
"
So, is the solution to close the canteens, like the restaurants?
"No, this is not the right solution", retorts Laurent Kaufmann.
From a social point of view first: "At the first confinement, we realized that the canteen, whose prices start at 30 cents, was the only correct meal for some", explains the principal, who reveals to have had to "buy food" for some families in need.
In some establishments, only scholarship students can have lunch in the canteen.
The closure "is not on the table"
Another concern, especially in rural areas, is the “distance between the students' homes and schools,” notes Hubert Salaün.
“More generally, adds Marie Tamboura, principal assistant in Montreuil, the lunch break is also where social relationships are forged in the school career.
"
Philippe Vincent, national secretary of SNPDEN, the union of school leaders, assures us that the subject of the closure of canteens "is not on the table".
If he recognizes that they present “all the ingredients” to create clusters, “it would be administratively complicated” to close them all at once: “Unless the decision comes from the government, because the schools are managed by towns, colleges by the department, high schools by the region.
A real puzzle.
"
