In 2020, France enacted a law to combat excessive waste, including a ban on single-use plastics and measures to educate consumers on recycling. Two years later, the government issued another ban on plastic-wrapped fruits and vegetables for around 30 products, with the goal of extending it to all fruit and vegetable products by 2026. Meanwhile, the European Union (EU) updated its circular economy action plan in 2020 and is introducing new rules on packaging waste, with similar measures but softer targets. For example, single-use packaging for unprocessed fruits and vegetables will only be banned from 2030. Brussels is also working on a new food and textile waste framework, which has not yet been adopted.
As French senator Anne-Catherine Loisier explained, these laws were rushed into parliament pre-Covid when Macron’s government was eager to seem proactive on the topic. The political context was different at that time, and environmentalists had a lot of political weight. However, enforcing these laws is now a challenge at home as French businesses fear that strict rules on recycling or sourcing sustainable materials increase costs and put them at a disadvantage compared to others. “These laws are confronted with the national and European realities of implementation,” said Loisier.
To address this issue, France has tried to get European policies aligned with its own laws. With the revision of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, negotiations in the Council of the EU – mostly driven by France – insisted “quite strongly on the ban of single-use packaging for fresh fruits and vegetables and of single-use packaging within [point of sale] premises,” said one parliamentary assistant. This demonstrates France’s commitment to reducing waste while also considering the competitiveness of its businesses in both domestic and international markets.
