the state wants to prolong the fall in prices

2023-05-05 16:03:00

Distributors will be received at Bercy to continue the fight against food inflation. Manufacturers, on whom the pressure now seems to weigh, will be received later.

By NJ with AFP

Bercy will receive the distributors, first, then the manufacturers, then, to continue to fight against food inflation.
© CAISA RASMUSSEN / TT NEWS AGENCY / TT News Agency via AFP

Published on 05/05/2023 at 4:03 p.m.

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Lhe heavyweights in the distribution sector are expected in Paris on Thursday, May 11, the Ministry of the Economy said on Friday. Faced with the rise in food prices close to 15% over one year in April, Bruno Le Maire, Minister of the Economy, wanted to discuss with distributors and the agri-food industry the possibility of extending, beyond June, price reductions on certain products in supermarkets.

This first meeting only concerns distributors. A second meeting, with the industrialists, this time, is planned “in a second time”, on a date which remains to be defined, according to Bercy.

New trade negotiations desired

In order to continue to protect the portfolio of the French, the government is considering a way to cushion the shock of food inflation beyond the first half. In March, he invited distributors to lower prices on a selection of products, over a period up to June, as part of the “anti-inflation quarter”.

Noting that the cost of certain raw materials has been falling for several months, without this necessarily being reflected in supermarket prices, the executive also wants to push distributors and manufacturers to reopen trade negotiations, which ended on the 1^is March and which resulted in an average increase of around 10% in the prices paid by supermarkets to their industrial suppliers.

Faced with the rise in food prices, “the State has taken its part, the distributors also, the consumers take it on a daily basis”, underlined, Friday, Olivia Grégoire, the Minister Delegate for Trade. “We are now waiting for manufacturers to take theirs” by reopening trade negotiations in order to lower prices, she insisted. The pressure seems to have weighed this time more heavily on the agri-food industry.

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Tax measures for the recalcitrant

If they do not comply, Olivia Grégoire threatens to “cite by name in the public debate” the recalcitrant actors, or even to sanction them via “tax measures”.

“The government’s method is to say: ‘We are considering ways to extend the anti-inflation quarter’, ‘we appeal to responsibility’… It’s a Care Bear method! commented André Chassaigne, the Communist deputy, on Friday, during the debate in the Assembly.