“You have a degastronomy of France”, declares Thierry Marx

The president of Unih, chef, was the guest of “8h30 franceinfo” on December 24, 2025.

“You have a degastronomy of France“, alerts Wednesday December 24, 2025 on franceinfo the chef Thierry Marx, president of the Union of Hotel Trades and Industries, a few hours before Christmas Eve. On December 11, 2025, the government announced its wish to relax the rules for the term “homemade”, symbolized on restaurant menus by a pictogram affixed in front of each dish. On this point, Thierry Marx assures that “we need an alternative to the industrialization of cooking“And”create a label on homemade products, which would be a framework law“.
The chef recalls that “there has already been a decree from 2014“, but according to him, “we must put this on a framework law which allows restaurateurs, bakers, charcutiers, all food professions, to say: I make homemade products, I have a more advantageous VAT. This would allowhe continues, to protect the craftsmanship of the food professions and to allow people who do well, who transform French agricultural products, who employ people to transform these products, who do their job well, to have an adjusted VAT“. Thierry Marx criticizes a “industrialization (food professions) which actually costs less, very often, which is produced outside France“and who”ultimately continues to undermine these food professions“.

In the 2026 budget, amendments were planned for catering, including a VAT reduced to 5.5% for professionals with the title of “master-restaurateur”, compared to 10% for the rest of the profession. The Ministry of the Economy said at the beginning of December that the title in question is today granted to 3,000 restaurateurs, who “100% homemade cuisine with local products sourced in a short circuit“.”Master restorers, for whom I have a lot of respect, are a niche today“, estimates Thierry Marx.
The president of Umih also regrets that France “doesn’t really cope well with its culinary heritage“, recalling the “operating costs, the burdens that weigh so heavily on these companies that they can no longer cope“. When you are a restaurateur, “sOn a 22 euro menu, you have 40 cents left“margin, he assures. Thierry Marx adds that the political situation in the country, since the dissolution of the National Assembly in June 2024, “worries the world of catering and hotels: when there is no trust, no political stability, ultimately everyone puts their foot on the brake“, he continues. The president of Umih explains that “we have to close roughly 25 restaurants per day“. It highlights the financial difficulties of restaurateurs for whom “the slightest zone of turbulences”the”plunges“.