French to tax the pique-nique

Cul-De-Sac! Bonjour! Champs-Elysées! As Del Boy would say, those despicable French types have slapped a tax on their other national pastime, the pique-nique.

The “tax picnic” is to be placed on disposable plates and cutlery and will amount to 90 euro cents per kilo (71p), announced the Minister of Ecology and Sustainable Development Jean-Louis Borloo.

There is already a tax on highly polluting products: oils, detergents and pesticides, and people can buy products of this nature for use with “the picnic”.

The concept is to extend existing taxes to these kinds of complementary products, i.e. the dishes and cutlery, plastic or non-recyclable cardboard.

The French already have a system of “eco-participation” tax that already exists on electrical and electronic products.

France produces 350 kilos of waste per person per year, so the French must learn to reduce their personal wastage such as disposable picnic plates.

The tax is the equivalent of taxing “chip paper”. The French are obsessed with countryside living and enjoying the great outdoors, they love nothing better than a picnic by a river on a warm summer’s afternoon.

Now the government intends to tax this luxury in the next annual budget. This is a contentious issue and Borloo apparently had to seek approval at the highest levels to push forward with his proposals.

The French opposition party immediately attacked the plans calling them heartless and nothing less than the first shot in a new class war, and said the new tax should instead be aimed at rich people who eat in fancy restaurants and not the average French citizen who sits as a traditional family group in the local park.