2023-05-31 09:53:11
This Wednesday morning, the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, did not hide his pleasure. “Inflation in France is slowing down sharply”, he congratulated himself several times on France Inter. In fact, in May, the rise in consumer prices in France fell to 5.1% over one year after reaching 5.9% in April, according to provisional data published on Wednesday by the Insee.
A good surprise: in a note published on May 5, the statistics institute still forecast inflation at 5.7% this month, then a decline to 5.5% in June. “Over one month, prices should be almost stable (-0.1%) in May 2023 after +0.6% in April”, he indicates.
Fall in energy prices
While this lull is largely due to the decline in energy prices, the good news is that the price surge is calming down on all fronts except for tobacco. It decelerated in services to +3% in May over one year against 3.2% a month earlier, as for manufactured goods (+4.1% after +4.6%).
Even if the French do not realize it while shopping, the waltz of labels in the food aisles has also calmed down a bit. Over one year, however, prices still show an increase of 14.1% in May, against 14.9% in April.
Purchases of goods down 1%
Faced with inflation that remains high despite everything, households are cutting back on their spending. Purchases of goods, in volume, thus fell further by 1% in the month of April alone, INSEE said on Wednesday. Consumption of food products fell 1.8% after falling 0.8% a month earlier. Energy consumption also fell by 1.9%. Purchases of manufactured goods, on the other hand, remained virtually stable (+0.1%)
More information to come…
#Inflation #slowed #sharply #France