“I am thinking of our bakers. » It is very spontaneously that Emmanuel Macron, questioned on the soaring energy prices on October 26, 2022, on France 2, speaks of these local artisans, stunned by electricity bills multiplied by ten or more, since autumn. The bakers also enamel each, or almost, of the interventions of the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, when he speaks of inflation or energy prices. “The baker is everyday life, it’s the life of all of us, describes the minister, in the program “Quotidien”, on TMC, Monday, January 2. It is the only local shop in municipalities where there are 200, 250, 600 inhabitants. » Bread is also “one of the forms of French culture”he recalled, the next day, in front of journalists, while the baguette entered the UNESCO World Heritage List at the end of November 2022.
Have some 33,000 French bakers become opinion leaders feared by politicians, like tobacconists, whose influence has declined as tobacco bars have closed down over the past twenty years? The National Rally (RN) has in any case identified the profession as a political target to be courted. On Tuesday, January 3, party president Jordan Bardella sent them a letter on Twitter, criticizing the government’s measures. He is far from alone.
In recent months, several far-right MPs have staged their meeting with bakers in their constituency, “often the last business of our municipalities”, they explain. Six written questions, as well as five questions to the government also came from the benches of the Republicans, the Socialist Party and the majority. The “rebellious” elected officials have, for their part, tried to pass an amendment restoring the regulated electricity tariff for powers greater than 36 kilovolt-amperes, a threshold which excludes a majority of bakers.
Feeling the anger rising in the bakeries – the video of a baker from the Oise stopping motorists on a roundabout turned on the news channels and social networks at the start of the week – the government mobilized. The existing aid has been supplemented by deferrals of social and tax charges, in order to absorb, according to the executive, “up to 40%” of the increase in energy. And electricity suppliers have been asked to review the most expensive contracts.
“France that works”
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