For 6.5 million children across France yesterday was the first day back at school after the long, hot summer holiday. But, for 166 of them, la rentrée scolaire was missing one crucial thing: kisses.

Determined to meet the threat of the swine flu pandemic head-on, the formidable mayor of Guilvinec in south-western Brittany, Hélène Tanguy, has decreed that there be no kissing on the cheek for any child in the town.

Instead of the traditional Gallic greeting, she has ordered pupils at Guilvinec's two primary schools to adopt what she claimed was a gesture beloved of native Americans and raise their hand in recognition of each other. In place of planting un petit bisou on each cheek, pupils are expected to keep their distance and say "ugh!" – supposedly a traditional greeting that is considered by many to be racially demeaning.

Angelique Joncour, the headteacher of the Jean Lebrun primary school, said the measure was simply "a question of common sense" in the face of the contagious H1N1 virus. She added that if the pupils felt the need to show affection in the absence of kisses they could take a paper heart from one of the "bisous boxes" being made available by staff and give it to their friend.

Unfortunately for the teachers of Guilvinec, their idea has been greeted with derision by many observers, who say the ban is pointless.

The bisous ban has been condemned by one anonymous political blogger, who is also unhappy with another anti-swine flu measure in the north-western town of Coulaines, where spitting in the street has been outlawed. The blogger said the schemes were "perfectly idiotic".

"If kissing and spitting are potentially dangerous … human beings are going to have to protect themselves from absolutely everything," the blogger wrote. "You would, for example, have to ban making love … you would have to ban talking to each other, or ask people to do it several metres apart."

Undeterred by the criticism however, Tanguy is enforcing her ban – and leading by example. For the last few days she has been refusing to kiss anyone in the village, preferring instead to greet them with a "friendly" gesture.

"To begin with it made everyone laugh. But people quickly understood my attitude, which now seems obvious to them," she said. Meanwhile the World Health Organisation said yesterday that the H1N1 virus, which causes swine flu, had not mutated and nor was it causing more severe illness than previously.

"There is no sense that the virus has mutated or changed in any sense," WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl told a news briefing.

But the Red Cross said even the most optimistic estimates had the virus causing several million deaths worldwide.