“It’s like being at the Restos du Cœur”… In Rennes 2, food distribution is always full

• A food distribution is organized every week on the Villejean campus in Rennes to deal with student insecurity.
• More than 300 students line up to fill their fridge every Wednesday afternoon.
• New emergency aid will soon be implemented by the metropolis to help this distraught youth.

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In front of the entrance to the Ereve building on the Villejean campus in Rennes, the queue stretches for several tens of meters. With a tote bag in hand, more than 300 students are waiting, like every Wednesday afternoon, for the distribution of food parcels. “It’s like being at the Restos du Cœur! One of them jokes. The young man, however, does not have the heart to laugh. Like so many others, he has struggled to fill his fridge since the start of the health crisis and has therefore resolved to seek food aid. “There is a lot in this case in my entourage,” he says.

Faced with this growing precariousness, the Union Pirate, the main student union in Rennes 2, therefore decided in February to set up these weekly food distributions. Each beneficiary leaves with seven basic necessities in their bag, as well as four fruits and vegetables and some hygiene products. The food comes mostly from donations from the Food Bank but also from collections made in supermarkets or from traders in the region. Communities are also mobilized to come to the aid of this helpless youth who cannot make ends meet.

“The communities compensate for the inaction of the State”

“The precariousness already existed before but the crisis only amplified it”, underlines Fabien Caillé, student vice-president of the University Rennes 2, which saw the landing of many new beneficiaries. If he welcomes the support of communities who provide “significant support in this difficult period”, however, he believes that this aid is a bit of a “patch”. “They compensate for the inaction of the State, assures the young man. Because if people are lining up for baskets of ten euros, it is because the problem is deeper ”.

Every Wednesday since February, more than 300 students have lined up at@ UnivRennes_2to receive food aid. A ton of food distributed every week #Rennes pic.twitter.com/HtZPdYBxfT

– Jérôme Gicquel (@jgicquel) March 24, 2021

Fabien Caillé also hopes that this aid will not stop once the crisis is behind us. “The issue of student insecurity cannot be dealt with on an ad hoc basis,” underlines the vice-president of the university.

Neighborhood houses soon open to students

But the urgency is there and obliges the Rennes metropolis to take new measures, amounting to 150,000 euros, which will be put to a vote in the Metropolitan Council on April 1. In addition to subsidies that will be paid to solidarity grocery stores as well as to Crous for the distribution of hygiene products, two social service assistant positions will also be funded for three months “in order to respond to psychological distress”, underlines Tristan Lahais, vice-president of the metropolis in charge of youth and student life.

A Night Line project, a listening service run by and for evening students, is also in the works for the start of the September school year. To break the isolation of the students, they will finally be able to “coworker” in the houses of neighborhoods of the city which are currently idling. The first should open their doors on Monday in the Breton capital.

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