ECB boost helps push European shares to highest since Nov 2007

* FTSEurofirst 300 up 0.8 pct, hits high since Nov 07

* ECB says programme could last beyond 2016, raises f'casts

* European earnings up 22 pct, best season since mid-2011

By Francesco Canepa and Blaise Robinson

LONDON/PARIS, March 5 (Reuters) - European shares touched a fresh 7-1/2 year high on Thursday, boosted by encouraging comments from the European Central Bank and by strong results from supermarket Carrefour (Paris: FR0000120172 - news) and fund manager Schroders .

ECB President Mario Draghi said the bank's bond-buying programme, due to start on Monday, could last beyond September 2016 if needed and dismissed concerns it may struggle to find sellers of the bonds. It also increased its economic growth forecasts for this year and next.

"He showed his determination to stick with the programme and dismissed ... the problem (that sellers will be hard to find)," said Joost Van Leenders, chief economist of multi-asset solutions at BNP Paribas Investment Partners.

"Overall that's positive for equities."

At 1510 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was up 0.8 percent at 1,569.57 points, having hit the highest level since November 2007 at 1,572.02 points as Draghi was speaking.

European stocks have rallied since the start of the year, boosted by the prospect of the ECB's quantitative easing. The FTSEurofirst 300 index is up 14 percent in 2015, outpacing Wall Street, where the S&P 500 has risen roughly 2 percent.

Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) in Carrefour rose 3 percent after the world's second-largest retailer said it would boost capital expenditure this year as it seeks to cement a revival of its European hypermarkets.

British fund manager Schroders (LSE: SDR.L - news) was up 3.9 percent after reporting a better-than-expected jump in its 2014 pretax profit as net inflows more than tripled to 24.8 billion pounds.

About 80 percent of STOXX Europe 600 companies have reported results so far and their profits were up by 22 percent on average from a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters Starmine data, making for Europe's best earnings season since mid-2011.

"Corporate results are encouraging," said Joffrey Ouafqa, fund manager at Paris-based Auris Gestion Privee.

"Companies have done a great job in terms of restructuring, and now they have a strong operating leverage. A small rise in revenue is enough to send profits soaring."

Miners bucked the trend on Thursday, with Rio Tinto (Xetra: 855018 - news) down 2.9 percent, after China announced an economic growth target for 2015 of around 7 percent and said it would boost government spending, signalling that the lowest rate of expansion for a quarter of a century was the "new normal" for the world's No.2 economy.

Europe bourses in 2015: http://link.reuters.com/pap87v

Asset performance in 2015: http://link.reuters.com/gap87v

Today's European research round-up (Additional reporting by Alexandre Boksenbaum-Granier; Editing by Jon Boyle and Susan Fenton)