Is it considered uncool or uncouth to bring your own lunch on a TGV train (2nd class)?

No! Not at all. Although if you don't bring your own, you can buy lunch at the snack counters on the train. They offer sandwiches and other light items.

Always bring it. The food on board is overpriced and forgettable.

cigalechanta, what a perfect response! I couldn't agree more.

vedette, we've brought alcohol on board as well.

Anselm

Well in that case, Mimi, I'm sure glad we brought our own lunch!

When we took the TGV from CDG to Avignon last year precisely at noon everyone opened their bagged lunches. It was as if a bell had rung.

AGA, it was so nice to finally meet you at the GTG.

SHOOT!! AGM

Heck, everybody brings food and beverages on the TGVs. Only the uninformed and uninitiated end up buying the overpriced and underwhelming food they offer on board.

French families open up picnic baskets and bring out all kinds of sandwiches and coldcuts and beers and wines and soft drinks. Students munch on snacks. Everyone's got something they either made or bought beforehand. I like to visit one of the Brioche d'Or or other sandwich places at the train station before I get on board and pick up a sandwich and a drink.

It's definitely VERY couth to bring your own!

I have never had a problem with food on the train. It is the norm.
Just clean up after you eat.

And people bring wine on the train, at least in France!! I found that the Europeans don't get all torqued out over drinking wine and women breast feeding babies like we do.

I got my introduction to the French custom of drinking wine whenI was on a train going from Lausanne to Paris. It was long before the days of the TGV and it was a looong ride.

At the time, even 2nd class was divided into compartments. There were 3 English speakers in my compartment, including myself when a French woman and a small child joined us. I thought the child was very well behaved for such a little fellow.

Then I saw the secret. Every time he whimpered or acted fussy, he got some purple juice. I finally figured it out, it was grape juice of the fermented variety. The kid was half potted and sleepy.