Living in Marseille, I see how bread is a source of daily joy – but the reality of French bakery is not as charming as it seems

For many French people, the first experience of being allowed out alone as a child is going to the local bakery. The smell of bread mingles with a sense of newfound freedom as the tip of the baguette, le quignon, is torn off on the way home. This is a romantic story, but it holds some truth about the esteemed role that bread and the baker hold in France – and it is partly what drew me, an English baker, to the country.

Having worked and lived in Paris and Marseille, I’ve since learned that although there is much to admire about the French relationship to bread, it is all underpinned by a web of political, social and economic relations that make it not as charming as it may seem from the outside. For one, the sale of pre-frozen, industrially made bakery goods is on the rise. The Spanish company Europastry, one of the top producers in this growing sector, recently claimed that “in a blind test you can’t tell which is which” between their frozen products and the unfrozen, artisanal equivalent. In France, frozen pastries and sweet baked goods accounted for a remarkable 24% of all pastries in 2021, higher than Britain and Spain.

Lizzie Parle is a baker in Marseille