The Minister of Economy Bruno Le Maire promised on Tuesday that “everything that can improve the situation” of food inflation “would be retained”, with a “limit” however, not to “trim the margins” of farmers.
“All proposals are welcome,” said Bruno Le Maire on the sidelines of REF 2023, the Medef summer school, when he will receive distributors and then industrialists in the sector on Wednesday and Thursday, accompanied by the Minister. Trade Delegate Olivia Grégoire.
Bruno Le Maire responded to the press in particular about the request of the CEO of Carrefour Alexandre Bompard for a moratorium on the application of the Descrozaille law which governs the promotions of certain products and must come into force in March 2024.
While noting that it was a “parliamentary initiative” law, Mr. Le Maire was “welcomed that the distributors made proposals”.
“This is how we will achieve better results together, we will look at everything constructively”, he said, and “everything that will allow us to improve the situation, we will retain it”.
“The only thing to which I am very attentive is the concerns of farmers who do not want prices to be pulled down for their agricultural production”, however warned the Minister: “this is the only limit that I fix it, I don’t want farmers’ margins to be eroded”.
Mr. Le Maire considered that “we are on the right track”, since prices “are starting to decelerate” thanks to “the pressure that we have already put on distributors and manufacturers”.
But further decline is its “top priority”.
He recalled that he would ask professionals “to expand the number of products on which they can make efforts”, beyond the current 1,000.
He also wants “more industrialists involved” in this movement (currently 35), and “that they make these decisions over time”.
The Minister of the Economy promised to “name the companies” which appear to be making “excessive and undue margins” in a report from the DGCCRF that he will receive, and threatened “to use the fiscal weapon” against these businesses.
“We are not there, manufacturers and distributors in their vast majority are playing the game, but we must have even more visible results”, he concluded.