In a supermarket in Villefranche-sur-Saône, April 28, 2023 (AFP/Archives/JEFF PACHOUD)
Carts less full, tickets scrutinized… The inflation which has been raging since 2020 has certainly slowed but remains at the heart of the concerns of the French, giving many the feeling of a downgrade that political measures or proposals are struggling to stem.
“Priority” purchasing power and “electricity bills” for Jordan Bardella and the National Rally; “great law for purchasing power” promised by the New Popular Front; measures supposed to improve it presented by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal… The entire political spectrum makes the French budget the mother of battles for the upcoming legislative elections.
“We especially wonder with what means they are going to keep all these promises,” reacted Monday Catherine, a retiree who did not wish to give her identity, turning up her nose at her ticket as she exited the checkouts of a hypermarket in the near suburbs. Parisian.
The government trumpeted a few months ago that the inflationary crisis was “behind us”. But if inflation has decelerated, after notably a 20% increase in two years in food, prices continue to increase on average, and weigh on the budget and the morale of the French.
– “Everyday” feeling of downgrading –
“We see in the European figures that purchasing power has held up well in France,” observes, on condition of anonymity, the mayor of a small town in central France. “But there are very strong disparities. And there is this frustration, this feeling of never getting out of it which generates worry.”
Inflation in France (AFP/Jean-Michel CORNU, Samuel BARBOSA)
“Inflation affects everyone, but in inverse proportion to income,” observes the specialist in the mass distribution sector Philippe Goetzmann to AFP. In the food industry, each checkout is a painful reminder.
Buy less meat or vegetables, target low-cost products or private labels, watch for promotions on products that are soon to expire… This “feeds a feeling of being downgraded, that of telling ourselves that we are living less well than before.” yesterday and that we risk living less well tomorrow,” he explains.
Prices have however fallen in supermarkets, but much more modestly than they had soared.
Added to this is the inflation of other expenditure items, starting with energy and fuel, much more expensive than when the yellow vest crisis broke out at the end of 2018.
Rural and peri-urban France, largely dependent on the car, is much more affected by the increase in fuel “than intramural executives”, hence a difference in perception, explains Flavien Neuvy, economist at Bnp Paribas Personal Finance.
In addition, with housing often less well insulated, the poorest “are more affected by the increase in energy bills”.
Aggravating factor: the constantly increasing budget share of so-called pre-committed expenses, internet and telephone subscriptions, housing prices, etc. “Many people find themselves overdrawn on the 15th of the month even though they have not yet spent anything “, notes Mr. Neuvy.
– “Go much further” –
The government did not remain inactive, notably with a very costly tariff shield at the height of the energy crisis. But the bill ended up increasing.
And in the food sector, the “anti-inflation quarters” and other non-binding “fuel at cost” operations depended above all on the goodwill of professionals in the food chain. For very relative effectiveness.
The Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire conceded on Sunday that it would “obviously be necessary to go much further” than the government announcements of the weekend with the reduction in electricity bills by 15% “from next winter ” or the increase in the ceiling of the so-called “Macron” bonus, possibly paid by companies to their employees.
The experienced president of the strategic committee of distribution leader E.Leclerc, Michel-Edouard Leclerc, told AFP on Thursday that “there is something inexplicable, incongruous, indecent in this that most politicians have not spoken out against inflation.”
“It was before that we had to mobilize. Now it’s too late,” he said, referring to a “disconnection of parliamentarians” from “popular demands”. “It’s a reality that probably contributed to Bardella’s success,” according to him.
© 2024 AFP
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