An “anti-inflation quarter” in supermarkets until June. This is what the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire announced on Monday morning. “This agreement will make it possible to have the lowest possible prices on a certain number of everyday products for a period of one quarter”, explains the Minister of the Economy during a press conference.
The device, financed thanks to the margins of the distributors, will cost them “several hundred million euros” and the government also intends to deploy in the coming months a “food check” for the most modest households, he added. .
At the end of this “anti-inflation quarter”, “we will reopen trade negotiations (theoretically annual and which have just ended, editor’s note) with the major manufacturers so that the fall in wholesale prices, which we are observing on the markets but which has not yet been transmitted to everyday consumer products, could be translated” into everyday products, said Bruno Le Maire.
The products that will be sold at the “lowest possible” prices will be “chosen freely” by each of the distributors, the minister specified, and may vary from one region to another.
They will be identifiable by a tricolor “anti-inflation quarter” logo. The bulk of commercial operations will relate to private label products, on which brands have the most “latitude” to set prices, said Carrefour CEO Alexandre Bompard.
“I’m not slamming the door in the face of Bruno the Mayor”
This meeting with the large distribution was shunned by Michel-Edouard Leclerc who did not want to “go on the photo” with the ministers Bruno Le Maire and Olivia Grégoire, he explained, noting “an orchestration side” and of political communication around the “anti-inflation” basket.
Several brands have already announced price moderation, making the government’s plan for an “anti-inflation basket” superfluous – a plan that has come up against the government’s inability to regulate prices too rigorously. , for competition reasons.
Without waiting for a government project, Système U had been the first brand to launch its own basket from the beginning of February. This weekend, Carrefour, Intermarché and Monoprix followed suit.
If Leclerc, the leading French distribution network, “does not forbid anything”, its boss “prefers for the moment to be less expensive on everything” and avoid “such a restricted cone of communication” which “gives the impression that we catches up on the rest”.
“I did not wait for a public meeting to be cheaper,” said Michel-Edouard Leclerc, who does not want to “sacrifice this price image on the altar of political communication”.
However, “I’m not slamming the door in Bruno the Mayor’s face,” he assured, adding that he was going to speak to the minister “later” on the phone.