These last years, galloping inflation has pushed many French people into precariousness. Increase in the average price of the shopping basket, fresh fruits and vegetables, raw materials, end of promotions… It is becoming more and more difficult to live properly and eat healthily. Associations helping the most deprived, such as Restos du Cœur, are also suffering from this surge in prices, even though they are essential for the people most affected by these problems. A reality that the team wanted to introduce to viewersCorrespondentwho, in his show broadcast Thursday March 7, 2024 at 9:10 p.m. and entitled These campaigns where we are hungryfollowed several people in great financial precariousness. Among them, Manuella, a bubbly 64-year-old retiree, who tries to get by each month with just €800 in retirement pension.
“You have to make choices (…) and you have to take responsibility”
Although she is supposed to be enjoying her retirement, Manuella tries to find odd jobs here and there to compensate for her meager retirement from intermittent entertainment. Income barely enough to survive, thanks to one-off contracts such as grape harvests, fruit or vegetable tastings at seaside markets, or even childcare. A fragile balance that Manuella manages to maintain for a time, until the arrival of a tax arrears of a few hundred euros, which shatters everything. Unable to pay the amount, but not wishing to go into debt either, she decides to reduce the already meager share of expenses related to food. “You have to make choices”she says in the show. “If you can no longer do your shopping, feed yourself, that’s what you’re going to make a choice because the rest has to be paid for, and you have to take responsibility.” She then starts by skipping breakfast, then eats less and less. “The tipping point is opening your fridge and having nothing in it”she says, with tears in her eyes. And to declare, in front of his empty fridge: “As Coluche said, it’s not the end of the month, it’s the first 30 days that are difficult.”
Manuella must organize herself with 24€ of shopping for ten days in the month
To last her last ten days of the month at the time of the report, the bubbly retiree can only use €24 for groceries. When she buys them, even in a solidarity grocery store, she counts everything to the nearest cent, only to get it right when paying. Although the situation is difficult for Manuella, she still wants to keep her head held high and pay for her food out of her own pocket. “I think it’s super important, frankly, I wouldn’t have accepted someone donating food to me”she admits to the camera, before concluding: “It shouldn’t be possible, we’ve worked all our lives, we shouldn’t be here.”