French get to chew over migrant's win

There is nothing more French than a warm baguette. Other symbols of national identity - berets, yellow headlights, yellow cigarettes - may have disappeared, but the baguette survives as a universal emblem of France.

The 2010 prize for the best baguette de tradition, or traditional baguette, in Paris has been won by a man born in Senegal, Djibril Bodian, 33, who moved to France when he was aged 6.

President Nicolas Sarkozy launched a "great debate on national identity" last year, which generated so much anti-immigrant rhetoric it embarrassed the Elysee Palace and was quietly shelved.

Immigration, it was claimed by many, threatened to destroy French identity and the French way of life. Not according to Djibril Bodian, and not according to the jury of gastronomes, minor celebrities and ordinary people who voted his baguettes were the best in the French capital.

"This prize is the best response there could be to some of the remarks that were made [in the national identity debate]," Bodian said.

"All of that was just politics ... Personally, I consider myself to be completely French, as French as my own bread."

As part of his prize, Bodian will supply all the bread for 12 months to Sarkozy's official residence.

The bakery where he officiates - sometimes starting his shift at 1am - could not be in a more traditional part of Paris. Bodian bakes for a branch of the Grenier a Pain chain in the Rue des Abbesses, one of the higgeldy-piggeldy streets in Montmartre, celebrated by the 2001 comic French movie, Amelie.

At his third attempt, he beat 162 other bakeries to the €4000 (NZ$7600) prize offered annually by Paris town hall for the tastiest and best-smelling baguette de tradition in the French capital.

A baguette de tradition is a slightly shorter, chewier version of the classic, long, white baguette. By law, it must be made from double-fermented dough, with no artificial yeast and no chemical additives.

"The only secret is not to take short cuts," Bodian said.

- INDEPENDENT