Vegan holiday in France

[Whereisthefamousoxygenmask]

Hi! I hope I’m posting this in the vegan forum. Apologies if I’ve got this wrong….

As a vegan family we’ve sadly tended to avoid France for holidays as have found other countries easier when it comes to finding vegan food. Now my children are learning French at school (one doing GCSE French exams next year) and they haven’t had an opportunity to do a French exchange, and we don’t have any friends or family in France. I’d really like to take them there for a week in the summer so they can be surrounded by people speaking French - and because it’s a lovely place to go.
Does anyone have any recommendations of places to stay where we might not struggle too much with our diets please? Or maybe my preconceptions are out of date? I think ideally a nice hotel with pools and things to do, or a nice self catering place with a pool in a lovely area with a small town nearby where they can hear French spoken and ideally some restaurants etc not too far away where we will find things we can eat for the odd meal out. Town or countryside are fine. Thanks so much!

Definitely go for self catering as you'll struggle to get a variety of vegan meals in hotels and restaurants.

Small town is likely to be tricky. Paris is doable these days but the more rural you are the harder it gets.

I agree self catering is the way to go. Somewhere near a big Carrefour.

If you're happy to not eat meat subsitutes then anywhere in France will be fine for self catering. If you want meat subsitutes or to eat in restaurants the probably Paris or another large city would be best.

In my experience (south of France, near Nice) the large supermarkets had an incredible variety of vegan options - loads of french style cheese, fake meat etc. But restaurants didnt really understand or cater to it very well at all. I'd go self catering.

I agree with self catering in Nice. There is a nicoise street food called Soca, which is a chickpea based flatbread cooked on hot plates. It is delicious, I could eat it for a week!

We went to monatlivet on a self catering basis and ate out about 3 times no problem for vegan requirements- I just explained (in French) what I couldn’t eat- restaurants were super helpful and happy to accommodate me !

Paris is absolutely fine to eat out.
In the dordogne we self catered and it was fine, few too many frites and pizza without any cheese when out and about.

We often go to rural Brittany and we find plenty of vegan products in the supermarket and can eat pretty much just like at home plus extra baguette and fresh summer stone fruits.

I would make a point of stopping in Paris for a daytrip or overnight on the way/back as I imagine it is the only place you will find vegan French cuisine, which would be a nice experience for your scholars. We had a fabulous foodie holiday there in 2023.

We have been a few times. Our family is a mix of veggie and vegan.

go self catering. The big supermarkets - carrefour and the like are pretty good. The restaurants are generally very problematic. We skied a lot and usually drive there. Our normal lunch out was a plate of chips each because the French just don’t understand or approve of vegan eating in general.

parts of Switzerland are French speaking and the food is much better.

Thank you so much everyone for the really helpful responses!

As well as the larger supermarkets, the organic food stores (Biocoop, Biomonde, Marcel & Fils and so on) generally have a large variety of vegan offerings. I had a vegan friend in the South and she ate out no problem, although generally had to ask for something or other to be left off her dish.