Fast food consumption is soaring in the cradle of haute cuisine. Quelle horreur!
By Vivian Song
Paris (CNN) — One of the hottest restaurants in Paris right now does not boast a celebrity chef or a palatial dining room.
In fact, there is no seating. Nor is the menu especially groundbreaking.
But over the last few months, the French take-out fast food chain Tasty Crousty, which sells chicken tenders served over rice, has gone viral, dominating social media to become one of the most popular food destinations across the country.
“It’s a huge hit on social media,” said Louise-Marie Kerboeuf, 19, who was visiting a Tasty Crousty location in Paris for the first time in March.
“It’s just chicken and rice but it’s a generous amount and not very expensive. And these days everything is getting more and more expensive.”
It’s become a bit of a French paradox: France is the birthplace of Western haute gastronomy and is known as the cradle of fine dining. But there’s been a remarkable shift in the country’s restaurant landscape, with fast casual and fast food chains posting record-breaking growth in recent years.
Commercial chain restaurants in France broke the 20 billion euros ($22.9 billion) mark in annual revenues for the first time in 2023, marking a 30% increase in revenue from 2019, according to French market research group Food Service Vision.
In 2024, that figure reached 21 billion euris ($24 billion).
Based on an estimate by Bernard Boutboul, founder of restaurant consultancy group Gira, more than half of the restaurant industry’s annual revenue in France is generated by the fast food and fast casual market (his figure includes independent fast casual restaurants).
“That’s colossal,” Boutboul tells CNN.
Leading this seismic shift is the 35-and-under crowd, a group that’s easily persuaded by influencers and social media trends, he adds.
“Gen Z has been shaking up the market for the past few years,” Boutboul says. “It’s the first generation to be a really big fan of fast food and street food in France. When you’re 25 today, you’ve been immersed in McDonald’s since you were a baby.”
The most popular take-out foods in France are sandwiches, burgers and pizzas, according to Gira. But the “crousty” or “crunch” box — a generous portion of white rice topped with a creamy mayo-based sauce, chopped up chicken tenders and a sweet and spicy sauce — has quickly become a viral sensation.
The chain Krousty Sabaïdi lays claim to inventing the “crunch” box in 2012 in Bordeaux, and now has 34 outlets across France. The concept has caught on and several “Krousty” competitors have emerged over the last few years, with Tasty Crousty stealing the market as the dominant player. The chain has around 50 restaurants across France, Belgium and Algeria, with plans to open outposts in Canada, Morocco and the United Kingdom. A box of crispy chicken and rice costs 9 euros or about $10.50.
Last fall, a Krousty Sabaïdi giveaway promoted by popular French influencer Fares Salvatore, who has more than 868,000 followers on TikTok, degenerated into mayhem when the call-out attracted 3,000 teenagers. They turned out hoping to grab one of the 1,000 free meals at their newly opened restaurant in Paris’ city center.
Riot police were dispatched to disperse crowds. Tear gas was deployed. And eight people, including six minors, were placed in police detention.
At the request of local police, the restaurant canceled the event.
Beyond viral French fast food chains like Tasty Crousty and O’Tacos (which serves hot tortilla wraps stuffed with chicken kebab and fries), US fast food brands have also been aggressively planting their flags across France over the last few years.
A five-minute walk from Tasty Crousty at Place de la République, the statue of Marianne, a symbol of the French Republic, overlooks a row of US fast food brands. Burger King, KFC (which recently launched its own version of the “Crousty”) and McDonald’s are next-door neighbors, while Popeyes and Five Guys opened just a few doors down in recent years. So saturated is the area, there are two McDonald’s locations a third of a mile from one another in this neighborhood.
How American fast food won over France
The first McDonald’s to open in France was in Strasbourg in 1979, a pivotal date for the French food landscape, Boutboul says.
For years, France has maintained its position as the largest market for the fast food giant outside the US with about 1,590 outposts. Last year, the chain’s director of marketing told French media it plans to have a McDonald’s restaurant within 20 minutes of every French household, a push that has been met with French resistance.
News that the fast food chain has been eyeing small towns for the next openings has mobilized local residents to fight back.
Aisha Ghanty, who lives in the town of Laroque in the South of France, launched a Change.org petition last fall.
“We refuse this project, unsuitable for our medieval village which will deteriorate our quality of life, the environment and local equilibrium,” Ghanty’s petition reads.
The town has a population of 1,700 but the petition has garnered nearly 3,000 signatures.
Ghanty, a lifelong environmental activist, tells CNN that she moved to Laroque in 2019, attracted by the serenity of the village’s winding river and walking trails and the promise of an environmentally progressive community. The town is located in Occitanie, which is part of Natura 2000, a network of protected natural areas within the European Union.
The opening of a McDonald’s also became an issue in the March 2026 municipal elections, with one candidate promising to fight the opening as part of her platform.
“We won’t give up,” Ghanty tells CNN. “We are strong, and we will do everything we can. We will fight to prevent our village from being ruined by a fast-food restaurant.”
A similar battle helped shut down the opening of a McDonald’s in the city of Angoulême last fall, after the mayor refused the company’s request for a building permit.
McDonald’s France and the Laroque mayor’s office did not respond to requests for comments.
‘Cuisine of excellence’ at risk
As the fast food industry experiences soaring growth in France, a collective of the country’s top fine dining chefs has warned that the art of French haute cuisine is under threat. Last year, 70 chefs representing a galaxy of Michelin stars including the likes of Alain Ducasse, Anne-Sophie Pic and Arnaud Donckele, signed an open letter warning that French gastronomy, “the pillar of our culture and emblem of our regions, is in danger.”
Spearheaded by French food journalist Laurent Guez, founder of the culinary think tank Le Passe, the letter, which was published in the French newspaper Les Echos, sounds the alarm on the risk of “degastronomisation” in France, or the erosion of the fine dining scene. Soaring food and energy costs related to world conflicts, post-pandemic labor shortages, and consumers skittish about spending in this turbulent economy have become huge challenges for restaurateurs, Guez says.
“This cuisine of excellence that encompasses everything from the food itself to the art of dining, exceptional service, and of course, the wines, this entire sector that constitutes French gastronomy, is at serious risk right now,” Guez tells CNN.
The groups calls for the French government to recognize gastronomy as a cultural exception, a political designation that subsidizes other arts like cinema, theater and television. For instance, a portion of all movie ticket sales helps fund the production of French cinema.
“We must do something to ensure that great chefs and great French cuisine are preserved,” the Parisien and Les Echos journalist says.
While Guez emphasizes that the fast food industry is not in direct competition with French fine dining, he says it does threaten another French culinary institution: bistros and cafes.
Furthermore, Guez and Boutboul, the restaurant consultant, also point out that fast food in France is often not the cheaper alternative. McDonald’s France is among the most expensive McDonald’s markets in the world. For about the price of a Big Mac Meal in Paris, which runs about 11 euros, or almost $13, lunch goers can get a main dish at a local bistro or a two-course lunch meal in suburbs and towns outside the capital.
That said, Boutboul cautions against vilifying the whole of the fast food industry in France, asserting that there’s a big difference between American and French fast food.
“I was recently in a McDonald’s in New York and you can’t compare. When we say that the French are being invaded by fast food, we need to qualify that by saying that the French are invaded by high-quality fast food.”
Boutboul defends McDonald’s, which sources its beef, cheese and potatoes from French farmers. The dining experience is also different in France, with table service and reusable cups and containers, in accordance with a law that banned single-use cups, cutlery and containers at all eat-in restaurants in 2023.
Aside from McDonald’s, Boutboul credits French entrepreneur Alain Cojean for reinventing France’s fast food scene — and for the better. Since opening his first Cojean restaurant in Paris in 2001, the company has grown to 40 outlets in the greater Paris region and is the first B-Corp certified fast food restaurant in France, which sets social and environmental performance standards. The restaurants serve seasonal organic soups, salads and sandwiches, and have a low-waste ethos.
“Alain Cojean was considered crazy in 2001, but he paved the way for high-quality fast food. Before he arrived, we only had junk food,” Boutboul says.
At the time, Cojean also inspired Michelin-starred chefs to open their own fast food concepts. Today, a handful of Paris’s star-powered chefs including Mory Sacko and Pierre Sang Boyer run fast casual restaurants (fried chicken sandwiches from Sacko; bibimbap for Boyer) alongside their gastronomic restaurants.
“French-style fast food makes for a good combination,” Boutboul says.
It proves the two spheres of French cooking can co-exist.
The collective of chefs, food journalists and restaurateurs convened by Guez is now meeting regularly throughout the year to discuss the state of the industry.
Guez is optimistic that the next generation of chefs, whom he describes as exceptionally worldly, will find ways to safeguard the country’s gastronomy while also embracing new ways to please the dining public.
“The creativity among young chefs in French gastronomy is exceptional right now.”
The-CNN-Wire
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