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Monday, 12 November 2007 |
The Justice Minister announces her plans to shake up the prisons.
Justice Minister Rachida Dati has
presented the broad outline of her
plans to reform France’s heavily
overcrowded prisons.
The 55 measures recommended by
the special consultative committee
include:
• the creation of a reinsertion
allowance for the poorest prisoners
• training to prepare prisoners for
release;
• lowering of the maximum period
spent in ‘disciplinary detention’ –
generally solitary confinement.
The overall aim of the new law is to
make French prisons compliant with
the norms required by the Council
of Europe.
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Monday, 12 November 2007 |
The international conference
‘Bees: Agriculture and
Biodiversity’, in Luxembourg
this month, will no doubt address the
worrying decline of bees, known in the
US as ‘Colony Collapse Disorder’, and
the chronic drop in the honey harvest.
As just one example of this year’s
difficulties, the Creuse (Limousin) is
distributing lorryloads of sugar syrup
to beekeepers whose hives have
nowhere near enough honey to see each
swarm through the winter. A hive
should have between 12 and 15kg of
honey stashed in its clammy cells to
keep the company alive. Even if
beekeepers resist taking so much for
themselves, the year has been a disaster
and the hives are underweight.
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Monday, 12 November 2007 |
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A commune in the Pyrénées-Orientales is to be the site of the
first large-scale private solar power plant in France. Six
hectares in the village of Torreilles has been earmarked for
the setting up of two hectares of solar panels, aimed at
producing more than two Megawatts of electricity to supply
1,000 homes. Some of the costs of the €10 million
investment will be offset by the sale of energy to EDF at
€0.30/kWh. Work is due to start in June 2008, and it is hoped
that power generation will start six months later.
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Monday, 12 November 2007 |
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Mayor of Paris Bertrand Delanoë has announced his wish for
Paris to become the world capital of solar energy. To this end
several large-scale projects have been put forward,
combining municipal and private initiatives. The intention is
that by 2020 the city will have cut its greenhouse gas
emissions by 30% of the 2004 levels. More than 14,000m2 of
photovoltaic panels are so far planned, to be installed on
highrise buildings and other major roofs of the capital.
www.paris.fr/portail/Environnement/Portal.lut ?page_id=6983
http://bertranddelanoe.net/vlog-paris/perspectives-2008-2014/
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Monday, 12 November 2007 |
The touring Environment Summit went to the people in October. Lindsay Woodster weighs up the fruit of the debates.
Open discussions were held around
the country last month as part of
the Environmental Summit
(Grenelle de l’environnement), the
government’s commitment to listen to
public opinion on how to save the planet.
The public meetings, at 17 venues in
mainland France, followed those of eight
working parties1 each examining a
specific issue and coming up with
concrete suggestions. In the last phase of
the Grenelle, Environment Minister
Jean-Louis Borloo is supposed to bring
it all together into a plan of action.
The government has been upbeat at
the public response so far. The special
Grenelle website cites 300,000 visitors,
14,000 views recorded, and between
1,000 and 1,500 participants at each
meeting. As further proof of his
intention to listen, Borloo met 10 of
those involved in a massive survey by
‘Wapiti’ magazine, a scientific paper for
7- to 13-year-olds focussing on nature.
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