The government had been preparing people’s minds for several months: in order not to continue to let so many billions slip away, the tariff shield on gas and electricity should one day be adjusted, adapted, recalibrated… On Wednesday September 14, it was necessary to announce the bad news.
Flanked by her Minister for Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, and her Minister for the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, revealed the arbitrations: + 15% on gas in January. Same increase for electricity bills in February. Everything will be accompanied by an exceptional energy check, which will be paid at the end of the year to 40% of households, ie 12 million households. “We must continue to address concerns while ensuring that we do not increase our debt further”, summarized the Prime Minister. Estimated cost: 45 billion euros gross (16 billion net), after nearly 30 billion spent over the past year.
The political moment is perilous. Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine and its consequences on the cost of energy, purchasing power has been at the heart of concerns. And the government knows that this subject is flammable. How will the increases be perceived by the French, relatively spared due to the tariff shield put in place on September 30, 2021? The executive’s main message is based on a comparison with neighboring countries. Tuesday, M.me Borne estimated that the gas bills remained rather “stable” in France (gas price freeze in October 2021, +4% for electricity in February 2022), whereas they had increased by half in Belgium and had been multiplied by three in the Netherlands and Germany .
“In this context of exploding prices (…)France is the country that has best protected households in Europe”, said the Prime Minister. According to Matignon, the average increases this winter will be 25 euros per month for households that heat with gas, instead of 200 euros without a shield (20 euros for electricity bills, instead of 180). “These massive price increase figures are not theoretical. This is the reality of what tens of millions of households in Britain, Italy or Germany are experiencing.added M.me Thick headed.
Opposition reviews
The rise in prices in France is, in fact, the lowest in the euro zone, whose countries are all very affected by the rise in energy prices. According to Eurostat data, at the end of August, inflation reached 6.5% in France, while it was 8.8% in Germany, 10.5% in Belgium and that it takes off in the countries of the east of the continent, in particular in Latvia (20.8%) and in Estonia (25.2%).
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