France, June 1 -- With its strong social safety net, France has not traditionally been a country with a strong culture of volunteerism. But that may be changing, with a new initiative to encourage people to give an hour of their time each month to help their neighbours.

"There are 65 million people in France. If each gives one hour, imagine what we could do? We can change the world," says Atanase Perifan.

He is behind L'Heure civique (the Civic Hour), a project that recruits people to volunteer an hour of their time each month to do tasks in their communities - tending to someone's garden, helping with grocery shopping or giving homework help, for example.

Surveys show that about a quarter of the French population takes part in some vo...