2023-12-19 19:52:23
Parliament urgently adopted on Monday, by a final vote in the Senate, the extension until the end of 2024 of an exemption which allows restaurant vouchers to be used to purchase all food products. The text, presented by the government as a measure to combat still high inflation, was adopted by 322 votes to 2 by senators in the evening.
Pressed for time as the system was due to expire at the end of 2023 if no legislative changes were made, the parliamentarians of the High Assembly kept the same editorial version as that adopted by the National Assembly at the end of November. This will allow the system to come into force as quickly as possible, “a necessity in the very short term” according to Minister of Commerce Olivia Grégoire.
The system, implemented in 2022 and supposed to expire on December 31, 2023, allows some 5.4 million employees in France to use their “restaurant vouchers” to buy non-directly consumable products on the shelves (flour, pasta , rice, meat, etc.), while they are normally reserved for directly consumable products in addition to restaurants.
Reservations expressed by restaurateurs
In the Senate, several environmentalist and centrist senators tried, in vain, to limit the extension to six months – to June 30, 2024. The government, in favor of extending the system temporarily, repeated Monday evening that it would be open to a lasting reform of meal vouchers, particularly with a view to their dematerialization. “We need to modernize it, dust it off,” said Olivia Grégoire. However, pure and simple sustainability “requires more in-depth work and consultation,” she added.
Les Républicains rapporteur Marie-Do Aeschlimann went in the same direction by asking for a broad vote without modification “immediately and in the face of the emergency”. She nevertheless underlined the “reservations” expressed by the restaurateurs against which the Senate will be “vigilant”.
“We are not unaware of the risk of destabilization of the catering sector, already strongly affected by successive crises. Likewise, we do not ignore the need to find a lasting solution for the purchasing power of the French because the check policy is akin to a bandage on a wooden leg,” she continued.
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