Culinary Controversy: Why France is Resistant to the Idea of Vegan Croissants

It sits there in all its flaky glory, with a crust the color of autumn leaves and two plump claws practically begging to be torn off and devoured. Light as air, as French as the guillotine.

One perfect croissant.

However, this particular pastry, one of the dozens on display in an unremarkable-looking boulangerie in central Paris, is not your typical offering. Far from it. For this is a butter-free croissant, a bold departure from more than a century of revered culinary tradition and a nod to larger forces attempting to reshape French food and agriculture.

Sacrilege has rarely appeared so appealing.

“I’m changing the world,” Rodolphe Landemaine smiled, between mouthfuls of a lovingly laminated, butter-free pain au chocolat.

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Landemaine, a baker, now owns five busy boulangeries in Paris, with more on the way in other French cities, all of which serve entirely dairy-free products to mostly local customers.

Not that he advertises the lack of butter, eggs, or cow’s milk in his stores. Indeed, the word “vegan” never enters his vocabulary.

“It’s not an easy word for French people to get used to. It’s very difficult for them to give up on butter and eggs,” he admitted to the BBC, explaining that the concept of veganism is considered too “militant” by many.

Instead, Landemaine, a vegan with a passion for animal welfare and climate change, has taken a more stealthy approach, hoping that customers will fall in love with his croissants, madeleines, quiches, sandwiches, flans, and pains au raisins before they discover, too late, that butter has been replaced with a secret blend of plant-based products.

And if he can persuade conservative French taste buds to tolerate “sans beurre” croissants, perhaps anything is possible, according to some.

As if on cue, a young boy walked past us, clutching the remains of a flaky claw and loudly declaring it to be délicieux.

“It tastes lighter,” said a 42-year-old musician named Anne, as she nibbled the end of her croissant.

“It’s really good. I don’t think I would recognize the difference,” Marta, a Polish visitor, said of her pain au chocolat. She is not vegan, but she noticed that ordering oat milk with her coffee often resulted in a scathing look from French waiters.

“I see the judgment in their eyes because it’s just not part of their culture,” she added.

For a country dealing with a slew of new influences, such as challenges to its long-standing state secularism policy or the wokisme of imported “Anglo-Saxon” culture wars, a few unusual pastries are unlikely to pose a significant threat.

Nonetheless, the issue touches on some raw nerves here, from the French people’s deep but evolving relationship with the terroir or land to the escalating farmer protests across Europe, to the upheavals caused by climate change commitments, to France’s almost religious devotion to certain culinary customs. All of this takes place in the shadow of the European Parliament elections in June, which are expected to result in significant gains for far-right parties in France and elsewhere.

“Not for me, no way,” exclaimed Thierry Loussakoueno, horrified by the mere thought of a butter-free croissant.