Pascal Canfin

Pascal Canfin (born 22 August 1974) is a French politician. He is a Member of the European Parliament elected in the 2009 European election for the Île-de-France constituency.

Biography

Pascal Canfin graduated initially from Sciences Po Bordeaux and then from Newcastle University.

Between 2003 and 2009, he was a journalist for the monthly magazine Alternatives Economiques and specialist in questions linked to the environment, social and solidarity economy as well as corporate social responsibility.

Prior to that he was a Human Resources consultant (1999-2003), after being a CFDT representative for Nord-Pas-de-Calais (1997-1999).

The Greens

Alongside his journalistic work, Pascal Canfin got politically involved with the Greens in France. He was responsible for the Economic, Social and Public Services Committee in the Greens between 2005 and 2009.

For the 2009 European Elections, he was third on the list of candidates for Europe Ecologie in Île-de-France, behind Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Eva Joly.

He is a member of Europe Ecologie Les Verts.

Member of the European Parliament

In the European Parliament, Pascal Canfin is member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and substitute member in the Committee for the Internal Market and Consumter Protection. He is also Vice-president of the Special Committe for the Financial, Economic and Social Crisis. Moreoever, he is Vice-president for the Public Services Intergroup in the European Parliament.

Pascal Canfin is rapporteur for the regulation on short selling and credit default swaps (CDS). French Green Pascal Canfin's report on short selling and credit default swaps (CDS) was discussed in the Economic Affairs Committee in January 2011, and voted as such in the Plenary Session in July 2011.

Finance Watch

In June 2010, Pascal Canfin initiated a call to the MEPs of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs to create a non-governmental organisation capable of developing a counter-expertise on financial activities lead by the principle operators (banks, insurance companies, hedge funds etc. ) The call took the name Finance Watch. He was joined by about one hundred European, national and regional elected representatives within the European Union.

A year later, in June 2011, the NGO Finance Watch was set up.

Books

• Le contrat écologique pour l'Europe, preface de Daniel Cohn-Bendit (Petits Matins Publishing 2009)
• L'économie verte expliquée à ceux qui n'y croient pas, preface de Dominique Voynet (Petits Matins Publishing 2007)
• Consommer responsable (2008)

References

This article incorporates information from the equivalent article on the French Wikipedia.