France, social portrait 2022 edition
Food aid recipients, often the poorest of the poors
Aliocha Accardo, Agnès Brun, Thomas Lellouch (Insee)
Food aid in kind provided by associations in France is distributed mainly in three forms: parcels, social groceries or ready-to-eat meals. People turn to one type of distribution rather than another, depending primarily on their family and housing situation: all other characteristics being equal, people who are single or people without their own accommodation are much more likely to attend meal distributions.
The majority of food aid recipients live in their own accommodation and also receive non-food support: social benefits, community or local aid, or informal help from their family and friends. Those who receive no other support are more likely to be homeless, immigrants or elderly.
In 2021, out of five people applying for food aid, four reported difficulties with their diet (need to reduce quantities, or the variety of food, etc.). More generally, applicants lived in dire conditions and their households were most often among the poorest among people in monetary poverty: they reported poor health and financial distress more than poor people as a whole, and almost three quarters lived in a household where the standard of living was less than 40% of the median standard of living.