A law to limit the use of the term 'restaurant' to those which actually cook? Excellent idea!

My right ear and  left arm in a restaurant. The rest of me stayed at home

Just walk into any French restaurant and you will be amazed at the high quality of the delicious dishes being served. Succulent fresh fish, gorgeous desserts, delicious prawns, eating out in France is a genuine pleasu........

What!!?? Good grief, did I really write that rubbish?! I do beg your pardon, it must be the weather. Or my tax bill.

Unfortunately, the fact is that up to 50% of French restaurants don't actually prepare or cook all the food they serve. They just heat up frozen dishes such as pizza and serve vegetables straight from the tin, or, in the case of many desserts, serve mass-produced items such as tarts and chocolate cakes straight out of the box or, where applicable, the fridge or freezer. So how can it possibly be right that they are currently allowed to call themselves 'restaurants' in their names and on their facades and menus, just like those restaurants that can actually be bothered to cook fresh food?

This is bad news for tourists of course, because the outside of all restaurants in a given price range look roughly the same and I'll bet a pound to a penny that 90% of tourists wouldn't know a good average-priced restaurant which serves real food from a bad one which doesn't. Until they are served that is, by which time it's too late. Even locals and those of us foreigners who have lived here for years need to be very careful when choosing to go to a restaurant for the first time. The only sure way is to ask someone who has already visited the restaurant concerned, but this isn't always possible, and tourists, of course, can rarely benefit from knowing someone who will send them to a good restaurant.

Are restaurant guides of any help? Unfortunately not, unless you are looking at the high end of the market, or reading a specialist guide. They just list restaurants irrespective of the quality, unless they have a really bad reputation.

Which leads me to one man's laudable attempts to clean up the restaurant business and sort the wheat from the chaff.

The story begins with the scandal which saw horse meat being passed off as beef in mass-produced lasagnes and other products. Nobody was charged in this scandal, and the national outcry it caused prompted the government to do something about it. The job was given to Benoît Hamon, a Delegate Minister for the Social and Solidarity Economy. He has drawn up a law proposal which would drastically increase the controls carried out within the food business and multiply sanctions for frauders by a factor of eight. This law is almost certain to be voted.

Now though a UMP deputy, Daniel Fasquelle, has proposed an amendment to it which would reserve the right to use the term 'restaurant' uniquely for establishments which prepare and serve fresh food. There would be exceptions of course - after all, it would be unrealistic to expect all restaurants to make food items such as cheese, bread and ice cream from scratch, although I do know some restaurants which do make their own bread or ice cream. What an excellent idea!

Many tourists come here with the expectation that food will be good everywhere, but they are often sadly disappointed with the fare on offer. This is not good for the country's image as a temple of gastronomical excellence. This amendment however would make it easier for them - and locals - to better know what they are letting themselves in for when they go into a restaurant. It would also reduce fraudulent practices in some restaurants, which pass mass-produced ingredients off as the real thing.

Some restaurant owners and professional bodies which represent them are against this proposal, saying that it would lead to severe job losses in the industry. But they are wrong, as the boulangerie business will attest.

It was extremely difficult to find a good boulangerie in France until 1995, when a law was passed which reserved the right to use the appellation 'boulangerie' uniquely for those bakers who actually produce their own dough on the premises. This has made things somewhat easier, although tourists and even some locals still have trouble knowing what a good boulangerie is so there is room for improvement. More importantly, it has saved the livelihoods of many bakers who were facing unfair competition from establishments such as those which merely bake products which have been factory-prepared, and the move forced producers of finished baker's products and pre-formed products to improve the quality of their offer, as real boulangeries were regaining the public's confidence and thus market share. (Incidentally, for those interested in the subject of finding good bread in France I wrote a detailed entry on it which you can read here. It's a must-read for tourists.)

France relies on the reputation of its restaurants and all things culinary, but that reputation has taken a serious battering over the last 25 years due to complacency, a lack of imagination when it comes to change which would be better suited to new tastes, and fraudulent practices. And as if that weren't enough, even France's ability to win international awards for food-related products and wine has diminished sharply. There was a time when the French would win a large majority of these awards, but these days they are majoritarily won by people and products from other countries. Did you know, for example, that this year's world cheese championship was won by a japanese lady and her cheeses?

The reputation of France's food and drink industry needs all the legislation and changes in mentality it can get if it is to improve, and the adoption of Daniel Fasquelle's proposed amendment would help not only the restaurant business, it would help to bolster France's reputation for excellence when it comes to food and drink too.

It's time we made an effort to save Traditional French restaurants from a gloomy and uncertain future

A dish at one of my favourite traditional restaurants in Lyon

No lover of traditional French cuisine will be happy with the results of a recent study which confirms the continuing downturn in the fortunes of the traditional French restaurant business and predicts that the bad news is set to continue.

The study, carried out by Xerfi, an economic studies institute specialising in market sector analysis, comes in the wake of poor performances by the restaurant business over the last few years which continued in 2012 with a drop in volume of 2% due to its vulnerability faced with consumers who are looking for ever more ways of reducing their non-essential spending.

Le Figaro has published some of the study's general conclusions, which point to a further retraction of 1% in 2013 for restaurants in general, but there's even worse news for traditional French restaurants (as opposed to Chinese, Italian and other kinds of restaurant), who are predicted to see another drop of 2% this year, resulting in a substantial total loss of 7% over 2012-2013. Figures are, however, set to pick up by less than 1% in 2014.

Those figures may not look too bad if taken in isolation, but they should be put into the wider context of the performance of food outlets in general. They include fast food restaurants, boulangeries (which have greatly increased their turnover in sandwiches and other lunchtime snacks over the last few years), and small, local supermarkets with their ranges of food designed to be eaten outside or at work.

Fast food outlets, after years of rapid growth, have seen their sales stabilise, but not drop, over the last two years, and they are predicted to bounce back more quickly over the next two years. In other words, they are continuing and will continue to eat into the market share of restaurants, and that of traditional French restaurants in particular. More competition will come in the form of an increase in the diversity of fast food fueled by boulangeries, sandwich shops and large restaurant chains.

Faced with this prospect, the restaurant business seems to be gearing up to fight back with what could turn out to be a blessing in disguise. In order to cut costs the business is beginning to interest itself in large food processing companies which, having recognised the beckoning opportunity, are working hard to increase the variety and quality of what is called 'cuisine d'assemblage' - literally, 'assembly cooking'. This relatively new range of products differs from those used by more traditional restaurants because of the use of semi or fully-prepared (although rarely frozen) products which are then 'put together' by kitchen staff. This kind of product is already being used by restaurant chains.

But cuisine d'assemblage presents a three-fold risk to the restaurant business, and traditional restaurants in particular. With much less food preparation involved there are likely to be redundancies among kitchen staff and even chefs. Also, and as all kitchen staff have to do is follow the instructions, creativity and variety are likely to take a back seat to standardised recipes. This is not good news for those who appreciate traditional restaurants which serve fresh and traditional produce and ingredients in an authentic manner, as those restaurants may well find it even harder to compete due to the relatively high cost of their meals.

Lastly, consumer belt-tightening and fierce competition from the increase in sales of fast food, restaurant chains and cuisine d'assemblage, all of which represent cheaper alternatives to traditional restaurants, resulted in the closure of around 6% of traditional restaurants between September 2011 and September 2012, and that figure is predicted to rise to even higher, record, levels in 2013.

I was saddened to read this news. As someone who eats regularly in traditional restaurants I have seen some of them close over the last few years (mainly, but not only, in urban areas), and others have chosen or been forced to cut corners and introduce some aspects of cuisine d'assemblage in order to survive.

Traditional French cuisine and restaurants still enjoy a well-deserved worldwide reputation for excellence despite the existential threat of cut-throat competition which thrives not on quality but on low prices.

The only way of reversing, or at least stabilising, this trend, is to make a conscious effort to eat in traditional restaurants despite their slightly higher prices and even if it means sacrificing one meal out a month in a Chinese or pizza joint.

I for one am not going to desert my favourite restaurants anytime soon and I hope that today's sobering news persuades others to do likewise, because if the restaurant-going public doesn't make an extra effort to support traditional restaurants, nobody else will.....