2023-05-31 10:10:26
Inflation slowed markedly in France in May to stand at 5.1% over one year, after reaching 5.9% in April and more than 6% at the start of the year, according to an initial estimate published on Wednesday. by INSEE. Something to rejoice Bruno Le Maire, who congratulates himself this Wednesday morning on France Inter on this result, obtained “in a difficult economic environment”, while “Germany has entered a recession” and the war in Ukraine is raging.
“This drop in inflation would be due to the year-on-year slowdown in energy prices (…) of manufactured goods and services”, but also food, up 14.1% year-on-year in May after having grown by 15% in April, indicates the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (Insee).
“Inflation is slowing down sharply, for the first time in several months,” confirms Bruno Le Maire. “A certain number of prices will start to fall”, assures the Minister of the Economy who affirms that “the distributors have kept their commitments on the anti-inflation basket” and that the “industrialists who are committed to my office” must now hold theirs.
The threat of “l’instrument fiscal”
And if the big manufacturers do not maintain them, Bruno Le Maire once again brandishes the threat: “I will use the tax instrument to recover the margins and return these margins to consumers! »
The increase in the price of fresh products (+10.4% over one year) continued at almost the same rate as in April (+10.6%), but the cost of other food products, on the other hand, increased less rapidly (14.8% against 15.8% in April).
Disinflation is even clearer for energy, where prices rose 2% year on year in May, after a 6.8% jump in April and double-digit growth in recent months.
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The cost of manufactured goods (+4.1% year on year in May) and services (+3%) also decelerated, but less rapidly. Tobacco, the cost of which jumped 9.8% over one year in May, is the only exception to the disinflation movement and its price is accelerating for the third consecutive month, notes INSEE all the same.
A reference indicator for comparisons between European countries, the harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) rose by 6% year on year in May, a growth rate nearly one point lower than in April (+6 .9%). Insee is due to publish a second estimate of inflation in May in mid-June.
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