“A very bad signal to our profession”: Thierry Marx criticizes the decision to extend restaurant vouchers

2023-11-16 16:51:32

An announcement that he cannot digest. Michelin-starred chef Thierry Marx has expressed his anger on behalf of restaurateurs over the government’s decision to extend the use of restaurant vouchers for all types of food products in supermarkets.

The president of the main employers’ union in the hotel and catering industry, Umih, even asked to be received “as soon as possible” by Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne “to express our incomprehension, our dissatisfaction and our wish to “a rapid return to the situation preceding the 2022 law,” he indicated in a press release sent to AFP this Thursday.

In 2022, the law introduced the possibility of purchasing food products that are not directly consumable such as flour, pasta, rice or even eggs in supermarkets with meal vouchers, an exemption which was to end on December 31, 2023. But faced with the protest caused by the end of this system, Bercy finally decided to extend it until 2024, or even make it permanent.

“He must not become a caddy ticket”

“With its about-face on the extension of the use of the restaurant voucher to food products, the government is sending a very bad signal to our profession”, deplores Thierry Marx “In restaurant voucher, there is restaurant. This title must remain a lunch aid for employees who do not have a company restaurant. He must not become a ticket caddy,” continues the chef.

The latter mentions a “shortfall of 200 million euros for our restaurateurs” over the year 2023, while recalling that mass distribution saw its share of the restaurant title market increase by more than 6% when “that of restaurants decreased by 3%.

“We are and we will be alongside restaurateurs,” replied the Minister for SMEs and Commerce Olivia Grégoire, on the sidelines of a trip to Indre-et-Loire. But the latter did not fail to emphasize that “we must also hear the French”, recalling that food inflation “remains quite high”. “Restaurateurs need to hear it and I have no doubt that Thierry Marx will hear it,” she concluded.

In his press release, Thierry Marx said he heard “the voices which express themselves about the usefulness of this title, in times of inflation, for daily shopping”, while recalling that the rise in prices “impacts also our restaurateurs.”

He then called on the government to “design a food voucher or a food voucher to fight inflation and help the most disadvantaged”.