In a significant legal challenge, key French producers of plant-based meat alternatives, including Umiami, La Vie, Nutrition & Santé, HappyVore, and Accro, filed, on Friday 22nd March, an interim injunction with the Conseil d’Etat against France’s latest decree banning ‘meaty’ terms for plant-based foods. Interim injunctions serve to prevent unfairness while awaiting a trial by temporarily halting the implementation of a decree by a government, pending a final decision on the matter.

The Conseil d’Etat, France’s highest court, will now need to pronounce itself on the injunction, while already having faced a similar case in the past. Indeed, the EVU and the Association Végétarienne de France (AVF) brought the French government’s last attempt to propose such a decree to court, resulting in the French Conseil d’Etat preferring to refer the case to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for clarification in July 2023 – a case whose final outcome is still pending.