French Lawmakers Advance Plan to Make Nutri-Score Mandatory

Summary

The French National Assembly has voted to include a pos­si­ble manda­tory Nutri-Score require­ment in a Social Security bill, mak­ing France the first coun­try to intro­duce the label­ing sys­tem on most pack­aged foods if the bill is approved with­out changes. The ini­tia­tive reflects grow­ing pub­lic sup­port for Nutri-Score in France, with debate con­tin­u­ing over whether the label­ing sys­tem should be adopted across all 27 EU mem­ber states due to poten­tial con­flicts with cur­rent EU rules.

With a new vote, rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the French National Assembly have moved to include a pos­si­ble manda­tory Nutri-Score require­ment in a pro­posed Social Security bill.

If the bill is approved with­out changes to the adopted amend­ments, France would become the first coun­try to intro­duce the front-of-pack label­ing sys­tem on most pack­aged foods sold in the coun­try.

Nutri-Score is a traf­fic-light-style label that uses five coor­di­nated col­ors and let­ters to rate the health­i­ness of a pack­aged food item based on its fat, sugar, salt, and calo­rie con­tent per 100 grams or mil­li­liters. A ​“green A” indi­cates the health­i­est rat­ing, while a ​“red E” rep­re­sents the least healthy. All olive oils cur­rently receive a ​“light green B.”

The main amend­ment asserts that ​“a large num­ber of sci­en­tific stud­ies demon­strate that the Nutri-Score is a nutri­tional sig­nal that works.”

French law­mak­ers noted that although more than 1,500 brands now use the label, ​“large agri-food groups con­tinue not to play the trans­parency game.”

The text also high­lights that ​“94 per­cent of French con­sumers have expressed their sup­port for a manda­tory Nutri-Score.”

During the debate, rep­re­sen­ta­tives dis­cussed exempt­ing tra­di­tional French foods, par­tic­u­larly prod­ucts cer­ti­fied under EU PDO, PGI or TSG schemes.

A sub-amend­ment spec­i­fies that these cer­ti­fied foods should be exempt, along with items tied to long-estab­lished regional tra­di­tions, includ­ing those pro­duced in moun­tain­ous areas and cer­tain small farms.

Lawmakers argued that the cur­rent Nutri-Score algo­rithm clas­si­fies nearly 90 per­cent of French cheeses as D or E, includ­ing many with offi­cial qual­ity labels, fail­ing to reflect ​“their pro­duc­tion meth­ods, cul­tural impor­tance and gas­tro­nomic value.”

They warned that mak­ing the logo a uni­ver­sal stan­dard for judg­ing ​“good” and ​“bad” foods could encour­age indus­trial refor­mu­la­tion — using addi­tives, sweet­en­ers or preser­va­tion tech­nolo­gies — to obtain bet­ter scores, with­out deliv­er­ing real health ben­e­fits.

Such an out­come, they said, risks turn­ing Nutri-Score into ​“a mar­ket­ing tool for prod­ucts with ques­tion­able nutri­tional qual­i­ties,” while unfairly penal­iz­ing regional foods whose spec­i­fi­ca­tions do not allow refor­mu­la­tion.

Jean-François Rousset, one of the law­mak­ers back­ing the amend­ments, said ​“our local prod­ucts, which are made with love to repro­duce recipes that some­times date back cen­turies, should not be com­pared to ultra-processed prod­ucts.”

While the future of the bill remains uncer­tain, the ini­tia­tive reflects grow­ing pub­lic sup­port in France for Nutri-Score and increased pres­sure on law­mak­ers to take a defin­i­tive posi­tion.

Nutri-Score was intro­duced in France in 2017 as an optional label. Major com­pa­nies such as Danone and retail­ers like Carrefour were among its early adopters, help­ing it spread quickly across the coun­try.

Several European coun­tries have since fol­lowed with sim­i­lar vol­un­tary sys­tems. Still, after a sig­nif­i­cant algo­rithm update was announced last year, some indus­try play­ers shifted their stance.

Danone, for exam­ple, stated the revised algo­rithm would penal­ize many of its prod­ucts and announced plans to remove the label from most of them.

By con­trast, Carrefour moved in the oppo­site direc­tion, mak­ing Nutri-Score manda­tory for most food prod­ucts sold in its French stores.

Since the intro­duc­tion of Nutri-Score, debate has con­tin­ued over whether it should be adopted across all 27 EU mem­ber states. The European Commission has delayed any deci­sion after divi­sions emerged among gov­ern­ments and indus­try groups.

The French Senate is expected to vote on the bill soon, but no other EU coun­try appears to be pur­su­ing a manda­tory approach.

Experts also note that a manda­tory Nutri-Score in France may con­flict with cur­rent EU rules. Under Regulation (EU) No. 1169/2011, ​“no mem­ber state can uni­lat­er­ally adopt a manda­tory front-of-pack label if it affects intra-EU trade.”

The European Commission has pre­vi­ously stated that EU law only per­mits vol­un­tary front-of-pack labels unless a manda­tory sys­tem is adopted at the EU level.