National Repair Days: October 18, 19 and 20, more than 1000 events dedicated to sustainability throughout France
1100 events, around fifty private and public partners, three round tables… On October 17, 2024, the Stop Planned Obsolescence (HOP) association and the Make.org foundation opened the second edition of the National Repair Days with with the ambition of taking a fresh look at the circular economy and repair sector.
Launched in 2023this event has the particularity of spreading out everywhere on French territory. In mainland France and overseas, hundreds of repair workshops, exhibitions and conferences will be held from Friday October 18 until Sunday October 20. The goal? Try to raise awareness among the general public of the benefits of repair, reconditioning and reuse in order to make “a more sustainable, more respectful and more united future“, in the words of Maitena Echeverria, operations manager at Make.org.
A repair reflex that is too little democratized
Study After study And barometer After barometerthe numbers don’t lie. THE “reflex repair” is not widespread enough among the French population, even though we know that extending the life of our everyday products is the best method to reduce their carbon footprint. In the words of the Minister of Ecological Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, “it is necessary to help the French adopt reparation“.
Readily described as “pioneer” with its repairability indexFrance lacks, according to many observers, of “political will“to keep this industry alive. Training dedicated to repair professions is lacking and remains mainly in the hands of private organizations, the territorial network Qualirépar stores is still too disjointed and the lack of “transparency on product design” as well as the repair process remains a powerful obstacle to the necessary sustainability effort, notes the minister.
“It is necessary to help the French adopt reparation” – Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Minister of Ecological Transition
On the public side, fears about “the price, complexity and quality of the repair“remain major obstacles to the democratization of repair, recalls Gaëlle Le Vu, CSR director at Orange France. Added to this is the lack of education and communication on the subject which means that, according to a survey conducted by the operator , “60% of respondents do not have their smartphone repaired“. Caught between economic constraints, “injunctions“consumption and software, marketing or hardware obsolescence, repair struggles to find a place in the collective unconscious.
Find an event near you
“We need to work to change behavior if we want repair to become a reflex.“, points out Gaëlle Le Vu. By way of illustration, the manager explains that, from now on, reconditioned phones are presented alongside new models in the operator's stores (after having been relegated for a long time to a section at the back of the store ). A small step in the strategy “zero carbon” which the company is committed to achieving by 2040.
Eager to make this decentralized festival a “big public celebration“capable of”reinvent our consumption patterns and the stories that accompany them“, HOP and Make.org therefore sought to increase the number of events, whether practical, with self-repair workshops, or cultural, with film debates. Because beyond political and economic issues, the need “to maintain know-how and defend the right to repair” is also at the heart of these second national days of reparation.
To discover events linked to national repair days near you, go to the dedicated website. The opportunity to take your old mobile out of the drawer or your broken mixer from the cupboard.
