In 2016, the municipality of Tassin-la-Demi-Lune imposed a single menu in school canteens. Parents of students obtained from the administrative court that it order Mayor LR to offer a substitute menu to the children.
Anissa Mezhoud wishes to free herself from any “community logic”. And welcomes the decision of the administrative court (TA) of Lyon, which ordered, on October 22, the mayor of Tassin-la-Demi-Lune to repeal the single menu offered in the canteens of this town of 22,700 inhabitants of the metropolis of Lyon. Member of a collective of parents of students from one of the five school groups in the city, this mother of three children tackled this state of affairs in 2022, alongside Licra. “It is the drift of a bad interpretation of secularism, which takes children hostage, which goes against the social cohesion essential at the moment in our countryshe explains to Liberation. My only compass is living together.”
Since 2016, Pascal Charmot, Les Républicains mayor of Tassin-la-Demi-Lune, has established a menu without substitution for children who do not eat meat, citing new logistical constraints in the manufacture of meals, following the implementation place of a public service delegation (DSP) with a collective catering provider, Sogeres. This change in management mode was the subject of a deliberation by the municipal council on July 6, 2016. “Certainly, the specifications for the renewal of the DSP do not require the elimination of substitution menus but suggest that the service provider provide a single menu”, pointed out the public rapporteur during the October 8 hearing of the TA of Lyon.
Respect for vegetarianism and food waste
“The canteen is a place of socialization in the public school which is dear to me, the children must be able to eat lunch together whatever their eating habits”underlines Anissa Mezhoud. This executive in a large company calls for the implementation of a second non-meat main course. For now, students who do not wish to eat animal flesh must make do with just one “vegetable” or a “starchy” offered as a portion of“accompaniement” by Sogeres. The group of parents also pleads respect for the choice of vegetarianism and the issue of food waste, reinforced according to them by the absence of alternatives on the plates.
“The law today allows for substitute menus, the judge [administratif] asks here to reintroduce them”, summarizes Anissa Mezhoud's lawyer, Me Maëlle Comte, from the Admys firm, specialist in local authorities and secularism. The town hall of Tassin-la-Demi-Lune announced on November 6 in a press release that it wanted to appeal this decision of the administrative court, of which “the city takes note, with amazement and seriousness”. “This judgment is obviously political and it is serious that it is”denounces Mayor Pascal Charmot, quoted in the press release, concluding that “it is the expression of elected officials in general that is in danger”. According to him, “jurisprudence, in the absence of law, specifies that these menus [de substitution] are not obligatory but must be maintained if they existed, but the latter did not exist and no official document attests to this. […] So how can I put back something that didn't exist? Unless the judge makes me a shopping list!”
“Error of law”
However, this version is undermined by the decision of the administrative court of Lyon, for which “it emerges from the documents in the file” what “the mayor expressly confirmed during the municipal council meeting of June 1, 2016 that the choice of delegate would be made “in a spirit of secularism” thus confirming that substitute menus would no longer be offered to students. […] The municipality of Tassin-la-Demi-Lune, which does not dispute that such menus were offered before, cannot seriously maintain that no decision removing the substitution menus was taken in 2016. Therefore, the reason given by the municipality “to justify the removal of substitution menus is tainted by an error of law”notes the court.
“The appeal is not suspensive and will not give rise to a new decision [de justice administrative] avant 2026»indicates Me Comte. The community should, in theory, notify Sogeres now of the need to negotiate an amendment to the DSP which, if the latter is challenged by the service provider, could give rise to the termination of the contract and the publication of a new call for tenders. public offers. In the meantime, the town hall is therefore required by administrative justice to re-establish a replacement menu within six months, i.e. before the next school year.
