French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire, in Paris, November 2, 2022 (AFP/Archives/Thomas SAMSON)
“There have been no profiteers from inflation in food,” said Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire on Saturday in an interview with Le Parisien newspaper, which seems to confirm the conclusions of several parliamentary reports.
In a context where the inflation rate for food products approached 12% over one year in October according to INSEE, “I asked the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) to carry out a study”, declared to the daily the N.2 of the government.
“The conclusion is clear: there have been no profiteers from inflation in the food sector. Neither farmers nor distributors, nor the agri-food industry have taken excessive remuneration in the process”, a- he added.
According to the IGF report consulted on Saturday by AFP, “in total, the rise in food prices results from the combination of several factors: war in Ukraine, post-Covid recovery, global warming, animal health crisis and various factors of an economic nature (competitiveness of the economy, shortage of labour, etc.).
At the end of June, the president of the strategic committee of E.Leclerc stores, Michel-Edouard Leclerc, had deplored that “half of the increases requested” by manufacturers in the context of renegotiations on the price of foodstuffs intended to be sold by supermarkets were “not transparent” and were “suspicious”.
A senatorial report published on July 19, however, had concluded that with the exception of a few “specific cases” there was no “generalized phenomenon of excessive increases”.
A few days later, a report by deputies Aurélie Trouvé (La France insoumise) and Xavier Albertini (Horizons) had not made it possible to detect “systemic abusive behavior on the part of manufacturers or distributors”.
At the checkout of a supermarket in Septèmes-les-Vallons, in the south-east of France, on November 3, 2022 (AFP / Christophe SIMON)
For its part, the IGF selected a sample of twelve everyday food products (chicken cutlet, plain yogurt, baguette, etc.) and studied the evolution over time of the gross margin of the various players in the production.
The analysis reveals on the one hand “that the agri-food industry has compressed its margins” and on the other hand that “supermarkets have not contributed to raising consumer prices for food products”, thus belying the assumption of inflation suffered only by the final consumer.
Despite this sharing of the effort, and lower inflation in France than in other European countries, the IGF points out that in one year, “certain food products have experienced particularly high price increases with, for example, +60% for oils, +22% for flour, +20% for pasta and +16% for poultry.”
Still on the question of purchasing power, Bruno Le Maire proposed in his interview with Le Parisien to organize in early 2023 a “convention on the sharing of value”, within the Renaissance party.
Even if he reaffirms in the interview his preference for the “employee dividend”, the Minister of the Economy suggests associating within this convention “economists, business leaders, employees and opposition groups to identify new ideas in addition to the work undertaken with the social partners”.
Finally, Bruno Le Maire recalled his intention for France to put in place “a global minimum corporate tax of 15% at the start of 2023”, if no agreement is reached at European level by December.
The Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Germany will introduce similar national taxation “in the same timetable”, in accordance with a commitment made in September.
© 2022 AFP
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