“That was good,” he said. “I reckon this must be one of the best restaurants in town.”

Sitting next to him at a long, formica table yesterday, his teenage classmates nodded in approval. They are pupils at the Lycée de L’Empéri in Salon de Provence, near Marseille, where they enjoy what are widely described as the finest school dinners in France.

“The food here is really exceptional,” said Germaine Roche, a philosophy teacher, who was tucking into a leek soufflé. “It’s a pleasure.”

As her colleague Pascal Simon poured himself a glass of Côtes du Rhône to wash down his cassoulet in the staff canteen, Dominique Valadier, the school chef, walked up. He was triumphant. “I went past the McDonald’s opposite the lycée and it was empty,” he said, beaming.

M Valadier, 52, has become a media star in France thanks to his self-appointed mission to fight the fast-food culture.

After learning his trade in some of the country’s most prestigious restaurants, he abandoned haute cuisine for secondary school refectories to get away from capricious diners. “They were rich and thought they could do what they like. They kept asking me to prepare meals for their dogs,” M Valadier said. “I prefer children.”

Ebullient and passionate, he provides such delicacies as conger eel with sesame seed and fennel cream or squid in its ink with fresh pasta and salmon at €2.30 (£1.60) per meal.

“The fish comes from a fishmonger 100m down the road, the cows graze in fields 15km (9 miles) away and vegetables are all grown in the region,” he said. “I am supporting local farmers and at the same time I am doing my best to increase the amount of different foods the pupils get to taste.”

With a food budget of €1.70 euros per pupil, he said it takes inventiveness to maintain the quality. He rises every morning at 4.30am and arrives at work an hour later, for a salary of €1,400 a month. “We get pupils coming to this lycée just for the canteen,” said Patricia Riani, an English teacher. “And you will notice they almost always finish their plates.”

Set in the centre of Salon de Provence, a few hundred metres from the birthplace of Nostradamus, the lycée caters for 1,400 pupils, in their late teens, of whom more than 900 eat M Valadier’s food.

This is the age group at the centre of concern over obesity in France, which is increasing at a rate of 17per cent a year among children.

The traditional, balanced French meal is now eaten by only 20per cent of the population. But 1million people eat at one of the 1,009 McDonald’s restaurants in France every day and 9million eat a sandwich. They also drink an average of 42litres (74 pints) of cola per person per year.

At the Lycée de L’Empéri, however, M Valadier has tempted pupils away from the town’s three McDonald’s.

Salon is twinned with Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, where Hinchingbrooke Secondary School operates a cash cafeteria for 2,000 pupils, of whom 1,110 will pass through the till. On the menu yesterday were filled rolls at 60p, cookies at 35p, macaroni cheese, pork stir fry, vegetables, salad and fruit salad.

Each child is charged £1.45 for lunch, although some qualify for free school meals. Martin Harwood, the catering manager, who budgets 80p per meal, said that many children brought packed lunches. “We are trying to go down the healthy food line, it just depends on what the kids will eat ... but we are getting there slowly,” he said.

But M Valadier said that he is more concerned with the taste of his food than with its medical value. “I am always fighting with the health professionals,” he said. “Eating is a pleasure and if you talk about cholesterol and diabetes all the time, it stops being a pleasure.” Mme Riani added: “It’s very noticeable that when we get British or American pupils coming here on exchange visits they are very suspicious of whatever we give them to eat. All they want is their sandwiches.”

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