Women volunteers cooking for migrants in France spark controversy

Volunteers cook for migrants: act of solidarity or performance

In recent days, footage of a group of women preparing pots of food at a makeshift camp in northern France has gone viral. The diners are people waiting to cross into the United Kingdom without documentation. The gesture, presented as humanitarian, has triggered a controversy mixing feminism, immigration and culture war.

The contradiction nobody wants to see

The most repeated argument is one of incongruity. Those cooking for strangers now, critics say, are the same people who for years denounced cooking as a burden imposed by the patriarchy. The irony is uncomfortable: if the pot is a symbol of oppression when used by a vvife, it becomes a gesture of freedom when it feeds a migrant.

This is no minor dispute. Beneath it lies the question of whether solidarity comes with a dose of spectacle. Between viral videos and dinners filmed from dramatic angles, some argue these actions are part of a migration industry that needs images to justify its funding.

From altruism to the 'enemy within'

The harshest part of the controversy goes further. These volunteers are accused of doing the dirty work of an elite that wants to dilute European identity. They are branded a 'fifth column' or useful naïfs for a cause they do not understand. At that extreme, volunteering becomes an alleged act of treason, and the accusation is no longer political but almost incivil.

Some compare moderate feminism to moderate Sarracin: a transitional state which, according to this thesis, paves the way for more radical versions. The comparison is twisted, but it reveals how deep the mutual distrust runs.

The noise drowns out the data

What is striking is that no figures are on the table. Not how many volunteers take part, not how much money NGOs move, not how many of these asylum seekers are considered 'bogus' by the authorities. The debate feeds on anecdotes, tweets and growing polarisation, where each side talks about a different country.

Meanwhile, the soup goes cold. The kitchen, the most pragmatic place there is, has become a symbolic battlefield: feeding people is no longer just feeding them, it is taking sides. And nobody seems willing to turn down the heat.