The new deadline is now known. The end of the systematic printing of receipts will finally take place on 1er August 2023, according to a decree published in Official newspaperSaturday 1er april.
The cascading postponement of the measure is due to the inflationary context. Initially planned from 1er January 2023, this measure had, in fact, already been postponed to 1er April, before the government once again announced its postponement last week, without further details.
“The moment is not the right one”, justifies the government
“We consider that the moment is not the right one for the measure to come into force”then justified the cabinet of Olivia Grégoire, minister delegated in particular to trade, in the Sunday edition of the ParisianMarch 26. “When you have 15% inflation on the shelves, when the receipt is a benchmark for many French people, it seemed important to us to keep this benchmark” a few more months, advanced last Sunday the same firm with Agence France-Presse.
As food inflation reached 16.3% at the end of March in supermarkets, compared to the same period last year, many consumers are scrutinizing their receipts more closely to check the details of their shopping and see the rise in prices, especially in supermarkets.
Faced with soaring prices, they are also changing their shopping basket, buying less meat and fresh fish, turning to cheaper brands and more prepared meals.
The law “anti-waste and circular economy”, voted in 2020, planned to put an end to the printing of the receipt at the end of a commercial transaction, unless explicitly requested by the customer, with the objective of reducing the production of waste. The measure aims to reduce the production of waste, while nearly 30 billion tickets are printed each year in France.