France could force all restaurants to provide doggy bags in an attempt to cut down on waste and overcome traditional Gallic resistance to taking food home after eating out.

The radical plan to make “le doggy bag” compulsory in restaurants, bistros and cafes has been adopted by a parliamentary committee in an amendment to a wider food bill, which will be debated next month.

The overall aim is to halve food waste by 2025.

While taking one’s leftovers home is commonplace in the US and to a lesser extent Britain, the French have been slow on the uptake despite a law passed last year that “strongly recommends” restaurants offer customers to leave with the remains of their meal.

An earlier campaign to promote such bags among restaurants was a flop, with only 10,000 sold in total among its 180,000 members.

“It’s true that in France there is a psychological barrier but that’s also because consumers don’t dare ask (for a doggy bag) for fear of being turned down by restaurateurs,” said Bérangère Abba, MP from President Emmanuel Macron’s LREM party and author of the amendment. “Habits must change,” she told Le Parisien.

Many French associate the practice with an “Anglo-Saxon” penchant for quantity over quality.