Ensemble pour mieux se nourrir

14 × 19 cm 208 pages softback april 2021 retail price: 20 €

Ecologies, journalist and writer Frédéric Denhez has already published over fifty books on a number of social and environmental issues. He often contributes to radio and television broadcasts and is a frequent conference speaker. A media-man, comfortable in all situations, it is his belief that “ecology is a social science”. That is why the problem of malnutrition and food aid is as important to him as the biological degradation of the soil, pollution, the climate and overfishing.

A lecturer in natural sciences, Alexis Jenni began his career as a writer in striking fashion when he published his first novel L’Art français de la guerre (Gallimard) which won the 2011 Goncourt Prize. He has since published a number of novels and essays.

Enquête sur les projets solidaires et durables pour sortir de la précarité alimentaire

FEEDING PEOPLE

A critical journey into assisting the bereft

Frédéric Denhez and Alexis Jenni

The poor’s ability to access decent levels of nutrition and culinary skills is well-documented. In a country such as France where food is a symbol, a veritable institution, the fact that anybody is still eating badly is a serious social failure. Poor nutrition and junk food lead to obesity and create a vicious circle of poverty and ill-health.

“Poverty is a prison with walls perforated with judgment.”

In France there are increasing numbers of people living below the poverty line, as well as across the western world. Their numbers have been increasing exponentially with recent recessions and health crises. The poor are growing poorer and their financial struggles mean they cannot eat properly, consequently they are forced to go cap in hand to charities and food banks. Junk food is a trap for poverty. For this work the authors set out to discover the different food aid mechanisms, which to some people have become a business, and to meet the people who, in their refusal to give in, have responded to the challenge by helping others to also help themselves. They took a journey around France, into the heart of a country which to many, although it seems familiar, is still unknown territory, and went in search of local initiatives demonstrating the inventiveness and generosity of the men and women grappling with the reality of the situation. Their encounters are recounted with a deep sense of humanity by Alexis Jenni, mingled in with hard-hitting and detailed analysis from Frédéric Denhez. Welcome behind the sometimes grim, sometimes illuminating, scenes of food aid in France.