(REVISED AUTOMATIC TRANSLATION OF THE ORIGINAL MESSAGE IN FRENCH)

Whereas one of the co-founder of the Max Havelaar label is invited officially at the Élysée presidential palace on June 14 in the setting of the meeting of the Global Compact with the general director of the UN, Kofi Annan, the President of the Republic and 150 company leaders, Antoine Herth, MP of the Low Rhine department, handed out last month a report including some propositions to sustain the development of Fair Trade.

This report pretends to analyze the phenomenon of Fair Trade on the basis of the current state of French and international initiatives.

It defines a series of criterias and rules of control to be agreed upon :

The strong idea of the text is that an official certification could help French consumers to buy, in confidence and therefore more often, Fair Trade products. Mr. Herth also proposes the creation of a National Fair Trade Commission, composed of the economic actors, consumers associations, the administrations and organizations concerned.

You can read the article (in French) and download the complete text of the report on the French Prime Minister website.

Information on the visit of Franz Van der Hoff, co-founder of the first Fair Trade Label in the Netherlands:
http://www.maxhavelaarfrance.org