The "most hated man in France" is, for now, not a policitian but a small town baker from Barnsley in England. Having taken advantage of an EU legal loophole, Englishman John Foster is now the official baguette supplier for France's railways, news bringing stinging criticism from the French.

French law stipulates that a baguette cannot be made using fat, which is the very ingredient that makes them last longer, however there are no rules to govern the ingredients when they're made elsewhere in the EU. The French railway increasingly found that French baguettes were too stale to serve at the end of long journeys and stipulated that they needed longer-life baguettes. Last month the Fosters of Barnsley bakery won the contract to supply long-life loaves to the entire French railway network.

Foster said of his triumph, "Their own bakers could give them a good product, but it didn't fit the railway's needs. In Yorkshire we've a tradition of giving customers what they want. They asked for baguettes which don't go stale and we said yes, we can do you them. We're shipping the stuff out by the wagon-load."

Foster says that his next foray will be into the brioche market, using the same loopholes in law that he's now using to his advantage.