One hundred and thirty thousand cooking trays, 5,000 rolls of cling film, 72,000 vacuum cooking bags, 7,000 freezer pouches: A wave of plastic is sweeping through the Elysée Palace's kitchens. In March, the French presidency signed a contract with three suppliers to source "disposable kitchen items" until the end of the presidential term, in 2027. The deal runs counter to the public statements made by President Emmanuel Macron, who on May 29 denounced the "scourge" of plastic pollution, a "time bomb" that needs to be defused "as quickly as possible" in order to "save our planet."

This contract will enable the Elysée to supply its restaurants and daycare with disposable kitchen items according to its needs over the period 2023-2027, for a maximum amount of €432,000. When contacted, the president's office stated that "most" of the products concerned were made of paper or cardboard. It claimed the presence of plastic is "marginal" and limited to items subject to "hygiene" standards, such as cling film or pastry bags.

And yet, according to the contractual documents shared with Le Monde by the Elysée, 17 of the 30 product references in the specifications contain plastic: sauce pots, shoulder bags, cart protection covers, garbage can liners, cooking trays, storage bins... According to our estimates, over 800,000 disposable plastic kitchen items could be delivered over four years, even though alternative solutions in glass, fabric, metal or cane pulp exist on the market for each of these products. "If the average consumer is able to have access to alternative solutions, I don't see why the Elysée wouldn't be able to," said Nathalie Gontard, a researcher at the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE) and a specialist in plastic pollution.

"The launch of the call for tenders followed a study of the various options and a transformation of working methods to align with the objectives of exemplarity in terms of waste and the use of plastic," said the Elysée's press office. Juliette Franquet, the director of the anti-waste NGO Zero Waste France, argued that "the way the call for tenders was drafted does not call into question the use of plastic and disposables."

In fact, from the outset, the specifications imposed the supply of disposable items, closing the door to re-use solutions such as glass trays or reusable cling film. The environmental criterion, which counted for only 15% in the evaluation of candidates for the contract, focused above all on the quality of the vehicle fleet used for deliveries, without dwelling on the products themselves. "There's not a single mention in the tender of the plastic reduction issue," said Gontard. "It's a missed opportunity, because this type of large public contract could encourage players who propose alternative solutions, in order to help the industry develop," added Franquet.

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