Some announcements “Sometimes incomplete, sometimes falsely protective”. The UFC-What to choose sharply criticizes, Friday 1er October, in a press release, the measures announced the day before by Prime Minister Jean Castex against the surge in energy prices. Seven months before the presidential election, the continuous increase in gas and electricity prices is a sensitive subject for the executive. The head of government announced on the 8 p.m. TV news on TF1 that it was setting up“A tariff shield”, for “Protect” the French.
The executive plans to block the regulated price of gas, which concerns 5 million French people, until spring. “There will be no more increase in the price of gas” after that of 12.6% on Friday, assured the Prime Minister, setting the deadline for April 2022, a horizon from which “The price of gas should tumble”. This decrease will be reflected more slowly in consumers’ bills, in order to smooth the price increase over the whole year.
For the UFC-What to choose, this announcement “In no way constitutes a measure to protect the purchasing power of consumers”. “If, by next spring, the tariffs of the TRGV [tarif réglementé de vente de gaz] will remain frozen at the current high level, the “smoothing” of prices mentioned by the Prime Minister will in reality require consumers to pay subsequently, at a period without electoral risk, which will not have been done by then ”, explains the association. And to add: “Consumers will not benefit from a rate freeze, they will pay the price. “
Inflationary spiral
The increase in regulated electricity tariffs, which was expected to reach around 12% at the start of 2022, will be limited to 4% in 2022 thanks to a tax cut.
The UFC-Que Choose believes that “The explosion of electricity prices on the international market” could have been completed by early 2022 “To a 15% increase in bills without government action”. Therefore, the announcement of the Prime Minister concerning the regulated tariff for the sale of electricity (TRVE) “Is obviously a lesser evil”.
However, “This measure, of which there is no guarantee that it will be perpetuated, does not make it possible to put a stop to the inflationary spiral of electricity prices, which have increased by 50% over the last ten years”, underlines the UFC-What to choose.
Also denouncing the“Blindness” of the government on the energy issues of the French, the consumer association asks parliamentarians to vote, within the framework of the 2022 finance bill, “The reduction in VAT on the consumption of gas and electricity [au minimum] until prices return to normal ”. The UFC-Que Choisir also calls on parliamentarians to vote “The end of the fiscal aberration constituted by the application of VAT on energy taxes”.