All it took was a May 17 tweet from French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire pointing out that plant proteins emit fewer greenhouse gases than animal proteins to set off the kind of firestorm social media are so fond of. His, factual, statement was posted during a visit to the factory of plant-based steak manufacturer HappyVore, a company partly financed by French billionaire Xavier Niel – also an individual shareholder in Le Monde – whose products are ultra-processed and positioned in a relatively upper price range. "Disguised product placement," "vegan lobbying"... Le Maire's words caused outrage.
A few days later, another controversy erupted: A report by France's Court of Accounts (France's top auditing body) on aid to cattle farms, published on May 22, noted that if France was to meet its climate commitments, including carbon neutrality by 2050 and the diminution of methane emissions, the government would need to plan for the reduction of cattle herds which account for around 12% of France's greenhouse gas emissions. The publication stressed the need to preserve grassland-based livestock farming and support farmers toward "less but better" production. It caused an uproar in the industry and the agriculture minister quickly rejected the report's conclusions: "The talk of forced degrowth as a public policy is curious, not to say out of touch with reality, given that France is not self-sufficient in any animal sector. Does this mean some people would like to increase our imports?" Marc Fesneau wrote in a lengthy message on Twitter.
The equation seems clear: Reducing livestock without lowering meat consumption would only increase imports and shift the problem elsewhere. But even though the report from the Court of Accounts clearly states that a reduction in meat production should go hand in hand with a policy of lower meat consumption, the government is reluctant to advocate such an evolution. However, all carbon-neutral scenarios for France in 2050 forecast a reduction in meat consumption, ranging from 20% to 70%, and the national low-carbon strategy adopted by France does set a reduction trajectory, in the low 20% range. Reducing meat consumption is also in line with public health objectives, as meat, particularly red or processed meat, has adverse effects on health when consumed in large quantities.
Is this where France is heading? Interviewed by Public Sénat television two days after the publication of the Court of Accounts' report, Fesneau stated that "The long-term trend is a decrease in meat consumption." Yet statistics suggest the opposite. According to data from FranceAgriMer, the government agency responsible for monitoring agricultural markets, total meat consumption in France has increased from 3.8 million to 5.8 million tonnes in carcass weight equivalent between 1970 and 2022 (+50%). Population growth alone cannot explain this increase as individual consumption rose by 12%. Although there was a period of decline in personal consumption between 1990 and 2013 (-11%), it rose again slightly (+3% between 2013 and 2022), driven in particular by the appetite for poultry (+16.2% in individual consumption since 2013), a large proportion of which is imported.
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