The French are in uproar about gen Z not lunching with colleagues. I’m on Team Solo Dining | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

2 hours ago 1

It’s often striking to me – as a British person and a Francophile – what prompts bewilderment among the French. Most recently, an article in Le Monde describes a concerning trend: younger adults are choosing to dine alone during their lunch breaks, flying in the face of longstanding workplace tradition. Almost one-third of employees under 25 regularly lunch alone, according to a survey by Openeat, compared with 22% of 25- to 34-year-olds, 16% of 35- to 49-year-olds and 12% of over-49s.

These statistics were shocking to me too, but in entirely the opposite way: so few? I forgot that when I was a waitress in Paris, I would serve groups of colleagues all the time. Whenever I visit, I am always struck by tables of people in workwear eating a prix fixe lunch menu of several courses, normally traditional French fare and often with a glass of wine. It always seems so very civilised. This culture may well be shifting, but it remains far more the norm there than in this country.

I love a big French lunch, but I don’t idolise it in the way I used to, and here is why. There isn’t much that makes me proud to be British, but a widespread, discreet understanding of other people’s right to alone time is one such thing. If my colleague wants to peruse the property section of the New York Times while eating fish and chips in the canteen during her lunch break, I would not feel offended, even if I am in that same canteen. She has two kids – who am I to deny her that moment of peace and tranquillity? Eating with colleagues can be lovely, but it’s not something anyone should be expected to do all the time, against their will.

The younger French people who are choosing to eat alone don’t seem to be being met with that same level of understanding. “So you don’t want to see us?” one young woman was asked when she didn’t join her colleagues for a team lunch. Ultimately, she tells Le Monde, she was let go, she suspects because she rejected a social obligation that she found “patriarchal” and oppressive. “The boss, who ate with us, behaved like a king,” she said. “Everyone was basically afraid of him and laughed mechanically at his jokes. We were his good little soldiers, even at the table. I felt like I was back in 1960.”

Well, brava to her for fighting back against a situation that sounds genuinely nightmarish. “Come and live here!” I want to tell her – everyone understands that lunch breaks are for going off by yourself to investigate food options, sitting on the grass with a book, phoning a friend to bitch about your job or trying on clothes you can’t afford in the shops. With the exception of certain industries, forced socialising really isn’t how we do things, at least not in my experience. The spectre of the “team away day” haunts the nation’s office workers to a profound extent, and that is a once-a-year occurrence. To be expected to eat lunch regularly with your colleagues – now that is something for which we would actually go on strike.

Look, I’m not saying that our way of doing things is always better. The way this country worships supermarket meal deals has always struck me as bizarre, though it’s nice to see that the offerings now extend beyond refrigerated sandwiches. I don’t think the French should be aspiring to an unhealthy lunch al desko. And cultures of presenteeism and the shrinking of lunch breaks are workers’ rights issues we should be fighting against. As any younger journalist will tell you, there’s a sadness to having missed out on the legendary long boozy lunches of the Fleet Street days.

Given the option, though, I’ll take solo dining. It’s one of life’s great pleasures, and that young adults – especially young women – are developing the confidence to do it should be celebrated. Gen Z is so often mocked for being antisocial or overly anxious about human interactions, and while there is something to that (what is so terrifying about making a simple phone call?), I expect there are other factors at play, such as a better understanding of how to look after their mental health. Also the cost of housing and living (still a factor in France, although their lunch voucher system helps). Eating last night’s curry from tupperware on a bench is a lot more affordable than a three-course sit-down meal, in the UK at least.

It should be said that cutting yourself off from other people completely is never good. The draw of the screen is powerful; work is required to resist it. Yet a rare group meal that has been planned and keenly anticipated is a far greater pleasure than a regular obligation that is silently dreaded. I didn’t think the French had much to learn from us in terms of lunch, but now I’m not so sure.