New food cheque should only cover healthy products, say French MPs
Parliamentarians affiliated with President Macron have called for the government aid to focus on 鈥榥on-carcinogenic鈥� items only
MPs from the centre-right MoDem group have called for France鈥檚 food cheque to be restricted to 鈥榟ealth, non-carcinogenic鈥� products
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France鈥檚 new food 肠丑猫辩耻别 state aid measure should only be redeemable on 鈥渉ealth, non-carcinogenic products,鈥� a group of MPs affiliated to President Emmanuel Macron has said.
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Some 55 诲茅辫耻迟茅蝉 from centre-right party MoDem (Mouvement d茅mocrate), which forms part of the president鈥檚 Ensemble alliance, have stated in an that the inflation tackling measure should also serve as 鈥渁 historic opportunity to put a public health policy in place鈥�.
鈥淚nserm [France鈥檚 National Institute of Health and Medical Research] has highlighted that an increase of 10% in the proportion of ultra-processed food in one鈥檚 diet is associated with an equivalent increase in the risk of developing cancer, and breast cancer in particular,鈥� the group stated.
鈥淚n addition, it is people on lower incomes who consume the most junk food (frozen pizzas, nuggets, chocolate bars, spreads) which contain at least 10 different additives.鈥�
The MoDem MPs claimed that a low-income family generally buys twice as much processed meat than a more affluent family.
They also stated that according to the World Health Organisation, these products are currently responsible for thousands of cases of 鈥渃olorectal and stomach cancer because of the presence of nitrates, which manufacturers use as a preservative.鈥�
The creation of a food cheque (肠丑猫辩耻别 alimentaire) will be proposed in the government鈥檚 new bill on spending power, which will be presented to the Conseil des ministres (Cabinet) on June 29.
Read more: New French spending power bill will not be ready before end of June
The MoDem group believes that the 肠丑猫辩耻别 could help to 鈥渋nvest more strongly in more sustainable production chains and processes, taking into account the warnings from scientists on the use of additives and on carcinogenic phytosanitary products.
鈥淭he food 肠丑猫辩耻别 could thus have three benefits: boost the spending power of 麻豆传媒映画 who are struggling to buy food in the short term, bring down the price of quality products so that they become more accessible and give a structure to sustainable agricultural and food practices.鈥�
The MoDem MPs added that they will now propose the subject for debate in Parliament.
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