The government unveiled this Monday morning new measures to protect the purchasing power of the French. A food check should be put in place in the coming months.
After weeks of negotiations with distributors, the government is finally announcing its measures to deal with record inflation in food, at 14.5% over one year according to INSEE. A “anti-inflation quarter“will thus be set up in supermarkets until June, announced this Monday morning the Minister of the Economy.
Concretely, each distributor will be able to offer its anti-inflation basket, with its own references. Some have already launched it, such as System U with 150 products “at cost prices», Intermarché with 500 references «at attractive prices», Monoprix and its device «Monopetitsprix» out of 300 products or even Carrefour with 200 references «at fixed prices“. Each brand thus retains control over its own initiative, with the aim of preservinga market economy“. To identify this multitude of products, the consumer will be able to identify them with a logo “anti-inflation quarterin the tricolor colors, affixed to the packaging.
Read alsoThe government abandons its anti-inflation basket
Renegotiations in June to lower prices
At the end of the system, in June, “renegotiationswill take place between distributors and manufacturers to lower prices. The costs of sunflower, wheat and ocean freight “are [par exemple] going down“. “We will not wait until the end of 2023 for the decline in wholesale products to affect retail products“, specified the Minister of the Economy. Bruno Le Maire, however, recalled that these prices “the lowest possiblemust be absorbed directly by distributors, reducing their margins. “Controls will be carried out by the DGCCRF, to ensure that the reductions“are well assumed by the signs, and not by the producers, warns the minister.
If several distributors were present alongside the minister, one was missing: Michel-Edouard Leclerc. The latter was on Monday on CNews “an orchestral sideof the government on the anti-inflation basket. “I’m not going to go on the photo to say Leclerc sells for less“, he added. The brand also launched a price comparator on Sunday: “When you know which is the cheapest, why go anywhere else?“, boasts the sign.
Moreover, in addition to this agreement with distributors, the Ministry of the Economy also mentioned the establishment of “a food check for the most modest“. The experiment should begin in a few weeks, “at the departmental level“. This initiative had been claimed several days ago by Christiane Lambert, the president of the National Federation of Farmers’ Unions, for people “precarious, who are 5 million in France today“.