Books. To say that the Nutri-Score nutritional label gave rise to a battle of lobbies is an understatement. Before this five-colour logo, indicating the nutritional quality of a food, was adopted at the end of 2017 by France as an official logo (although not compulsory), major agri-food groups fought a bitter fight against this label, deploying all the range of possible influence strategies: maintenance of doubt about the scientific validity of the device, proposal for a counter-logo, multiplication of exchanges with the political sphere – official and unofficial –, denigration of the teams who designed and tested the logo, personalization issues… A real textbook case of lobbying led by a sector, deciphered in two recent works.
The first, Eat and shut up by Serge Hercberg, is a personal account of the many pressures received by this professor of nutritional epidemiology, who chaired the National Health Nutrition Program in France from 2001 to 2017; a gripping behind-the-scenes look at public health decision-making. The second, From lobbies to the menu, written by Daniel Benamouzig (Centre de sociologie des organisations, CNRS and Sciences Po) and Joan Cortinas Muñoz (associate researcher at the Sciences Po health chair), is a sociological survey of the different types of intervention of the food industry in the public sphere. Research conducted over two years, which demonstrates, beyond individual conflicts of interest, the existence of influence activities “systemic”.
These two books are full of examples. Serge Hercberg thus recalls an emblematic fight, that of the banning of snack vending machines in schools in 2004, which had earned the professor many hostile letters, up to an anonymous threatening telephone call.
Daniel Benamouzig and Joan Cortinas Muñoz recount another episode: during the examination of the health bill of 2015, in which the introduction of nutritional labeling was discussed, a director of public affairs for the sector complained to of the Elysée Palace for failing to meet the Minister of Health. “We got a little angry with the Elysée and Matignon, saying: “Listen, we don’t understand, we manage to see the President of the Republic, we manage to see the Prime Minister, we manage to see almost all government ministers (…). It is not normal”says this official. The Elysée ends up forcing Marisol Touraine to meet with us, and she shuns us and sends us her chief of staff. » Reputed to be more closed to the private sector, the Ministry of Health nevertheless has a main shortcoming, according to Serge Hercberg: its “low weight (…) in the government hierarchy in the face of much heavier ministries, such as that of agriculture or that of the economy”.
You have 46.26% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.