Questões Redator Júnior para Concursos

Is France’s supermarket waste law heading for Europe?

By Hugh Schofield BBC News, Paris

Plans to introduce a French law that bans supermarkets from destroying unsold food and obliges them to give it to charity is irritating retailers who say they already make a big effort to fight waste.

Under the law, stores of more than 400 sq m would have until July 2016 to sign contracts with charities or food banks, and to start giving them unsold produce. It follows a media campaign run by a young centre-right politician, Arash Derambarsh, who says he was outraged by the sight of homeless people last winter scrambling in supermarket bins. A local councillor in the Paris suburb of Courbevoie, Derambarsh began his campaign by collecting the unsold food and handing it out to the needy. He then launched an online petition, which helped create momentum for the new law.

While broadly welcoming the idea, charities are also wary about ending up with more food than they can handle. "This had better not translate into a poisoned chalice," says Olivier Berthe, president of the Restos du Coeur (Restaurants of the Heart) charity. "We cannot be made to accept donations we do not need. We cannot become rubbish dumps." Jacques Bailet, president of the French Federation of Food Banks (FFBA), also says there is a risk charities will not be able to cope. "Our food banks are going to need more staff, more lorries, more refrigerated rooms. But to get all that, we will need money - and money is pretty scarce these days," he says.

Is France’s supermarket waste law heading for Europe?

By Hugh Schofield BBC News, Paris

Plans to introduce a French law that bans supermarkets from destroying unsold food and obliges them to give it to charity is irritating retailers who say they already make a big effort to fight waste.

Under the law, stores of more than 400 sq m would have until July 2016 to sign contracts with charities or food banks, and to start giving them unsold produce. It follows a media campaign run by a young centre-right politician, Arash Derambarsh, who says he was outraged by the sight of homeless people last winter scrambling in supermarket bins. A local councillor in the Paris suburb of Courbevoie, Derambarsh began his campaign by collecting the unsold food and handing it out to the needy. He then launched an online petition, which helped create momentum for the new law.

While broadly welcoming the idea, charities are also wary about ending up with more food than they can handle. "This had better not translate into a poisoned chalice," says Olivier Berthe, president of the Restos du Coeur (Restaurants of the Heart) charity. "We cannot be made to accept donations we do not need. We cannot become rubbish dumps." Jacques Bailet, president of the French Federation of Food Banks (FFBA), also says there is a risk charities will not be able to cope. "Our food banks are going to need more staff, more lorries, more refrigerated rooms. But to get all that, we will need money - and money is pretty scarce these days," he says.

Is France’s supermarket waste law heading for Europe?

By Hugh Schofield BBC News, Paris

Plans to introduce a French law that bans supermarkets from destroying unsold food and obliges them to give it to charity is irritating retailers who say they already make a big effort to fight waste.

Under the law, stores of more than 400 sq m would have until July 2016 to sign contracts with charities or food banks, and to start giving them unsold produce. It follows a media campaign run by a young centre-right politician, Arash Derambarsh, who says he was outraged by the sight of homeless people last winter scrambling in supermarket bins. A local councillor in the Paris suburb of Courbevoie, Derambarsh began his campaign by collecting the unsold food and handing it out to the needy. He then launched an online petition, which helped create momentum for the new law.

While broadly welcoming the idea, charities are also wary about ending up with more food than they can handle. "This had better not translate into a poisoned chalice," says Olivier Berthe, president of the Restos du Coeur (Restaurants of the Heart) charity. "We cannot be made to accept donations we do not need. We cannot become rubbish dumps." Jacques Bailet, president of the French Federation of Food Banks (FFBA), also says there is a risk charities will not be able to cope. "Our food banks are going to need more staff, more lorries, more refrigerated rooms. But to get all that, we will need money - and money is pretty scarce these days," he says.

Is France’s supermarket waste law heading for Europe?

By Hugh Schofield BBC News, Paris

Plans to introduce a French law that bans supermarkets from destroying unsold food and obliges them to give it to charity is irritating retailers who say they already make a big effort to fight waste.

Under the law, stores of more than 400 sq m would have until July 2016 to sign contracts with charities or food banks, and to start giving them unsold produce. It follows a media campaign run by a young centre-right politician, Arash Derambarsh, who says he was outraged by the sight of homeless people last winter scrambling in supermarket bins. A local councillor in the Paris suburb of Courbevoie, Derambarsh began his campaign by collecting the unsold food and handing it out to the needy. He then launched an online petition, which helped create momentum for the new law.

While broadly welcoming the idea, charities are also wary about ending up with more food than they can handle. "This had better not translate into a poisoned chalice," says Olivier Berthe, president of the Restos du Coeur (Restaurants of the Heart) charity. "We cannot be made to accept donations we do not need. We cannot become rubbish dumps." Jacques Bailet, president of the French Federation of Food Banks (FFBA), also says there is a risk charities will not be able to cope. "Our food banks are going to need more staff, more lorries, more refrigerated rooms. But to get all that, we will need money - and money is pretty scarce these days," he says.

IMF’s new head economist is imaginative realist

By Edward Hadas

July 21, 2015

What the International Monetary Fund needs most in its economic counsellor is imagination and realism. With Maurice Obstfeld, who will take over the job from Olivier Blanchard in September, it has both.

Of course, the distinguished Berkeley professor, member of the U.S. president’s Council of Economic Advisers and leading textbook author has the needed technical skills. But conventional academic excellence is not enough to guide the international lender as it negotiates the intricate politics of the apparently endless Greek crisis. Nor can the old dogma deal with the greatest contemporary challenge to steady economic development: global financial excess.

Blanchard already moved the IMF well away from its former identification with the Washington Consensus, which was based on an exaggerated confidence in free markets. His suggestion that the universally targeted inflation rate of 2 percent might be too low was highly unorthodox. Obstfeld is likely to go further in the same direction.

IMF’s new head economist is imaginative realist

By Edward Hadas

July 21, 2015

What the International Monetary Fund needs most in its economic counsellor is imagination and realism. With Maurice Obstfeld, who will take over the job from Olivier Blanchard in September, it has both.

Of course, the distinguished Berkeley professor, member of the U.S. president’s Council of Economic Advisers and leading textbook author has the needed technical skills. But conventional academic excellence is not enough to guide the international lender as it negotiates the intricate politics of the apparently endless Greek crisis. Nor can the old dogma deal with the greatest contemporary challenge to steady economic development: global financial excess.

Blanchard already moved the IMF well away from its former identification with the Washington Consensus, which was based on an exaggerated confidence in free markets. His suggestion that the universally targeted inflation rate of 2 percent might be too low was highly unorthodox. Obstfeld is likely to go further in the same direction.

IMF’s new head economist is imaginative realist

By Edward Hadas

July 21, 2015

What the International Monetary Fund needs most in its economic counsellor is imagination and realism. With Maurice Obstfeld, who will take over the job from Olivier Blanchard in September, it has both.

Of course, the distinguished Berkeley professor, member of the U.S. president’s Council of Economic Advisers and leading textbook author has the needed technical skills. But conventional academic excellence is not enough to guide the international lender as it negotiates the intricate politics of the apparently endless Greek crisis. Nor can the old dogma deal with the greatest contemporary challenge to steady economic development: global financial excess.

Blanchard already moved the IMF well away from its former identification with the Washington Consensus, which was based on an exaggerated confidence in free markets. His suggestion that the universally targeted inflation rate of 2 percent might be too low was highly unorthodox. Obstfeld is likely to go further in the same direction.

IMF’s new head economist is imaginative realist

By Edward Hadas

July 21, 2015

What the International Monetary Fund needs most in its economic counsellor is imagination and realism. With Maurice Obstfeld, who will take over the job from Olivier Blanchard in September, it has both.

Of course, the distinguished Berkeley professor, member of the U.S. president’s Council of Economic Advisers and leading textbook author has the needed technical skills. But conventional academic excellence is not enough to guide the international lender as it negotiates the intricate politics of the apparently endless Greek crisis. Nor can the old dogma deal with the greatest contemporary challenge to steady economic development: global financial excess.

Blanchard already moved the IMF well away from its former identification with the Washington Consensus, which was based on an exaggerated confidence in free markets. His suggestion that the universally targeted inflation rate of 2 percent might be too low was highly unorthodox. Obstfeld is likely to go further in the same direction.

IMF’s new head economist is imaginative realist

By Edward Hadas

July 21, 2015

What the International Monetary Fund needs most in its economic counsellor is imagination and realism. With Maurice Obstfeld, who will take over the job from Olivier Blanchard in September, it has both.

Of course, the distinguished Berkeley professor, member of the U.S. president’s Council of Economic Advisers and leading textbook author has the needed technical skills. But conventional academic excellence is not enough to guide the international lender as it negotiates the intricate politics of the apparently endless Greek crisis. Nor can the old dogma deal with the greatest contemporary challenge to steady economic development: global financial excess.

Blanchard already moved the IMF well away from its former identification with the Washington Consensus, which was based on an exaggerated confidence in free markets. His suggestion that the universally targeted inflation rate of 2 percent might be too low was highly unorthodox. Obstfeld is likely to go further in the same direction.

IMF’s new head economist is imaginative realist

By Edward Hadas

July 21, 2015

What the International Monetary Fund needs most in its economic counsellor is imagination and realism. With Maurice Obstfeld, who will take over the job from Olivier Blanchard in September, it has both.

Of course, the distinguished Berkeley professor, member of the U.S. president’s Council of Economic Advisers and leading textbook author has the needed technical skills. But conventional academic excellence is not enough to guide the international lender as it negotiates the intricate politics of the apparently endless Greek crisis. Nor can the old dogma deal with the greatest contemporary challenge to steady economic development: global financial excess.

Blanchard already moved the IMF well away from its former identification with the Washington Consensus, which was based on an exaggerated confidence in free markets. His suggestion that the universally targeted inflation rate of 2 percent might be too low was highly unorthodox. Obstfeld is likely to go further in the same direction.