Rafaël Benabdelmoumene // Photo credit: Europe 1 6:29 a.m., March 2, 2024

The annual Restos du Cœur collection takes place until this Sunday evening.

80,000 volunteers from the association will be present in 7,500 supermarkets throughout France.

The goal is to collect 9,000 tons of donations this year.

A collection against a backdrop of declining resources and an explosion in the number of applicants.

The annual Restos du Cœur collection began on March 1st and must end this Sunday.

This year, the association hopes to collect 9,000 tonnes of donations.

At the Carrefour hypermarket in Ormesson-sur-Marne, near Champigny-sur-Marne, Fatma came on purpose to give away a shopping cart filled to the brim with pasta, oil, coffee and canned goods.

“It’s normal,” she assures.

“This shopping cart for me is a debt. At the time, with my children and my husband unemployed, it was given to me, so I give everything back. It makes me happy.”

Between six and seven tonnes of food over the entire weekend

René puts away the contents of Fatma's cart.

He has been a volunteer at the Restaurants for 17 years: "Before, people came with carts of oil, or a cart of pasta."

He notes a drop in the number of donations due to inflation: "I think that this year there will be a little less, but hey, the little we have is already good for people." explains the retiree.

The volunteers of Champigny-sur-Marne have, every week, “2,500 mouths to feed, more than 100 babies,” explains Danielle Bouvier, the collection coordinator in the town.

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In 23 years of commitment to Restos du Cœur, she has seen the quantity of donations drop: “People give less because it’s hard for everyone [but] people are generous”.

At the same time, the number of applicants is increasing: "We give 7,500 meals per week. We have 825 families. The allocations have decreased, before, we gave six meals per week, now, we only give four", regrets Danielle. 

Roberte makes the same observation, the volunteer approaches customers at the entrance to the supermarket: "It's growing crescendo. Before, we had very few people. Now, we have students, workers who can't get along feed too. And we have single parents too.”

Fanny filled her basket with hygiene products because "people don't necessarily think about it. They think more about food. It's important, but we must not forget that we all have to wash the days. The needy, I was at one time. I know what it is. It should no longer exist in fact."

Volunteers in Champigny usually collect between six and seven tonnes of food over the entire weekend in this hypermarket.

Enough to last a long week.