After the bakers, the restaurateurs? Representatives of restaurateurs, who are asking for aid to pay their energy bills, will be received Thursday at 5 p.m. by the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire and the Minister for SMEs Olivia Grégoire, Bercy announced on Wednesday.
Bruno Le Maire had announced this meeting in the morning on France Inter, while warning restaurateurs that they should not expect the same help as bakers, who obtained Tuesday to be able to renegotiate their electricity or gas bills without penalties for contracts with the most disadvantageous conditions.
“The situation is very different (…) Bakers have increased the price of butter, flour, all raw materials, by 20, 30, 40% and electricity. They are the only ones who are in this case”, with the exception of a few other professions such as “butchers, who are also in real difficulty”, he explained.
“Restaurants are not the same situation. We will obviously receive them as we have done each time, but everyone will not have the same devices, ”he insisted. “The aid will now be targeted to those who need it most,” said the minister.
Difficulties “similar to those of bakers”
But the difficulties encountered by restaurateurs are “very similar to those of bakers”, reacted Franck Trouet, spokesperson for the employers’ union of independent hotel and catering workers, the GNI. “We are also big energy consumers, very impacted because the tariff shield does not apply (…) we have suffered the inflation of the wage bill and that of raw materials: the increase in the price of butter , fish, meat… because breeders, farmers pass on their price problems to us,” he explained.
The catering sector wants “a tariff shield for all companies, without conditions”, claimed the spokesperson for the GNI, evoking “phenomenal anxiety among professionals”. “We must get out of the current situation where we sell the electricity we produce at a derisory price to then buy it back five to ten times more expensive: until the current negotiations are completed, there is an urgent need to take measures that allow our businesses to pay their bills,” he concluded.