3. Waste policy developments in France

3.1 Waste management, a pillar of the circular economy

As part of the "Towards a resource-efficient Europe" initiative (COM 2011,21), the European Union has set itself the ambition that by 2020, waste should be managed as a resource, whether material or energy, and no longer simply as a substance to be disposed of. To get things off to a good start, Directive 2008/98/EC of November 19, 2008 on waste and repealing certain directives (known as the "Waste Framework Directive") has cleaned up the existing regulatory arsenal and updated the following principles:

• The "polluter pays" principle extended to the responsibility of producers of goods for the treatment of their products once they have been used;

• hierarchy...