In a country whose national identity is so closely connected to its cuisine, France's far-right has seized on a growing appetite for kebabs as proof of cultural "Islamisation", reports Reuters.
Four kebab houses opened last month in Blois, bringing the total to over a dozen in the pretty Loire valley town where tourists come to see the castle. The far-right National Front party railed: "The historical center of Blois, the jewel of French history, is turning into an Oriental city".
The implicit message is clear: the now ubiquitous kebab, popular with the young and cash-strapped, is a sign that Middle Eastern culture has taken root in France, where not everyone is happy about the presence of five million Muslims.
"The kebab is a bit of a reflection of all the problems with immigration and integration in France," says Thibaut Le Pellec, founder of KebabFrites.com, a website that ranks kebab houses across the country and seeks to raise the reputation of the "kebabistes" who make and sell the food.
Damien Schmitz, who runs a kebab shop in Paris, puts it more bluntly: by criticizing the kebab, he says, "you can speak ill of Muslims without speaking ill of Muslims."
Introduced by Turkish immigrants to Paris in the 1990s, the doner kebab - where meat is carved off an upright rotating spit and served in a flatbread with salad and spicy sauce - quickly found favour with France's North African population raised on spiced halal meat in tagines and stews.
The dish adapted to the French palate, served in crusty bread, with the addition of a creamy white sauce and side of fries.
Now, some 300 million kebabs at about 6 euros each are eaten in 10,200 outlets in France each year, putting the 1.5 billion-euro ($1.9 billion) industry just behind burgers and pizza, according to Gira Conseil, a market research company.
Kebabs are everywhere - in cities and towns, in supermarket freezers and drive-throughs. One brand of potato chips is even kebab-flavoured, and advertised by Yohan Cabaye, a white footballer who plays for France and Paris Saint-Germain.
But despite its rapid rise in popularity, the kebab has a lingering reputation - perpetuated in part by hidden-camera TV shows that have exposed some insalubrious kitchen conditions - of greasy junk food served in dodgy corner shops by non-assimilated Muslim immigrants.
With food often used as a metaphor for French identity, the National Front has made a campaign issue of opposing the widespread supply of halal meat, something it sees as Islam impinging on French traditions.
The metaphor is not restricted to meat. One right-wing politician created a furore in 2012 by repeating an unsubstantiated anecdote about how a schoolchild had a 'pain au chocolat' - a quintessential French pastry - snatched from his hands by Muslims who were fasting for Ramadan.
Campaigning for local elections last March, National Front candidates across the country criticised the rise of kebab shops, with one coining the phrase that France was undergoing a "kebabisation".
Read more of this report from Reuters.