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Waste heat from industry or urban facilities represents a largely underused and long disregarded energy source, while heating and cooling count for half the final energy demand in Europe. From the early 2010s onwards, waste heat recovery (WHR) is being recognized as a key challenge for energy transition and tends to be integrated into energy strategies at different levels. This paper provides an analysis of how WHR became a matter of public policy in Europe and in France. Based on a literature review, the analysis shows that WHR has been framed as a techno-economic problem, while some barriers (legal, organizational) to its development remain largely unaddressed. A study of European and French energy agendas illustrates how WHR progressively started to be recognized as an energy resource next to renewables. As a result, questions are raised as to further social science contributions to an extended research agenda addressing WHR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In March 2020, the French President called to war against the COVID‐19 which was followed by the launch of a military operation called Operation Resilience. This use of martial rhetoric initiated an effective mobilisation consisting in logistical assistance to the health sector. While armies are increasingly used to deal with environmental disasters, aside from their traditional role, this paper postulates that the geography of the French and international military engagement can be used to analyse both the institutional strategy of crisis management and the message governments send to their population. Military involvement differs in terms of missions given and of the amount of troops mobilised. It first questions the use of the military in the name of national resilience in the political discourse and the way it displays a symbolic message to the population, before analysing the role of armies in the crisis through the spatiality of their interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: NEETs (young people not in employment, education or training) are at higher risk for poorer mental and physical health. In France, the Missions locales (MLs) are the only social structures dedicated to this population. We sought to determine whether the systematic offer of a social and preventive medicine consultation at a ML might increase NEET participants’ access to training in the 12 months following the intervention. Methods: This intervention research was a parallel randomised controlled interventional study conducted at five MLs in mainland France in 2011–2012. It included 976 NEETs aged 18 to 25 years who attended one of the five MLs. At inclusion, participants were randomly assigned (1:1:1) to three groups: those in the first group were invited to see a social worker (not studied in this paper), those in the second group were invited to see a doctor and a social worker (intervention group), and the third was a control group. The primary outcome was participation in at least one training session during the year following study inclusion. Results: Among the 976 participants, 504 were randomly assigned to the intervention group and 472 to the control group; 704 (72.1%) were included in the analyses. A significantly higher proportion of the participants in the intervention group participated in a training session in the 12 months following the intervention than of those in the control group (63.3% vs 55.6%; p = 0.04). This difference was significantly greater for women, those less than 21 years of age, those unstably housed and those with a lower level of education. Conclusions: Social and preventive medicine consultations that are fully integrated into the social services for NEETs have an impact on their access to training and contribute to changing some of their health-related behaviours. This may improve their access to the labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the formulation of policy frames towards new minorities in France by analysing Lyon's membership of the European Commission's and Council of Europe's Intercultural Cities programme (ICP). Here, with culture accounting for 20% of Lyon's budget, emphasis is placed on the adoption of the Charte de Coopération Culturelle to use cultural institutions to implement difference-orientated policies. Critically, important issues emerge with this strategy. The effort to engage new minorities is hampered by significant apathy from cultural institutions in Lyon, and the limited geographical area of Lyon included in the ICP. Finally, institutions who engage with promoting interculturality co-opt existing organizations, with negative implications for the treatment of diversity in the city. This illustrates the problems with a European framework fostering a policy frame based on recognition for minorities in a context that has yet to fully embrace such policies at the national level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]