LYON (AFP) – After major investments in a bid to restore its lost national culinary prestige, France savoured victory at the world’s most prestigious international cooking competition, the Bocuse d’Or.
Son of the former winner Regis Marcon Paul Marcon clinched the title late in France’s gastronomic capital Lyon, 30 years after his much-garlanded father.
The biennial event, which takes places in front of a boisterous live audience, was founded in 1987 by late French cooking legend Paul Bocuse.
Having seen Scandinavian countries dominate over the last decade, France’s team has professionalised and attracted funding from public authorities and private donors in a sign of the importance of the title for national identity.
“It’s a childhood dream. It’s a source of pride to take France to the top again,” a visibly emotional Marcon, 29, told reporters after being hoisted onto the shoulders of his colleagues in his chef’s whites.
near Lyon, central-eastern France. PHOTO: AFP
“Today I hope that we light up the eyes of all the cooks and cooks-to-come in France,” he added.
In total, 24 countries competed in the 2025 edition, with the Danish team, winners of the last edition, taking silver and Sweden the bronze medal.
Marcon and his team wowed the judging panel with a pie filled with deer, foie gras and wild mushrooms and accompanied by celery.
The quality of cooking on display at the Bocuse d’Or is seen by observers as increasing every year as countries invest in their delegations for national marketing purposes or to raise the profile of their gastronomic traditions.
France has won just one medal in the last decade – Davy Tissot having clinched gold in 2021 – with Scandinavian nations maintaining a grip on the top positions with their precise, minimalist and environmentally-conscious cooking.
Until the victory by Marcon, the United States – whose food the French have long looked down on – had won more medals than France over the last 10 years.
“France was navel-gazing,” Tissot told AFP recently, “while people around us were moving forward.”
Then France’s Trade And Tourism Minister Olivia Gregoire admitted last year that France had been “outstripped by the performance and influence of other countries”.
Realising that the country had fallen behind, Team France head Romuald Fassenet began searching for new funds and resources when he took over in 2019 and he found an ally in President Emmanuel Macron, who became the first French leader to visit the Bocuse d’Or.
Around EUR600,000 were raised for this year’s French team led by Marcon from private donors and the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region surrounding Lyon, which is headed by ambitious conservative politician Laurent Wauquiez.
A national centre for gastronomic excellence, called the Paul Bocuse Institute, was formally launched in January in Lyon to train chefs for international cooking competitions.
Macron has also created an “ambassador for French gastronomy”, naming former presidential chef Guillaume Gomez to the role last year.
