The showdown intensifies before the examination of a bill in the National Assembly. This Sunday, nine distribution giants – Carrefour, Leclerc, the Casino group, Auchan, System U… – call in a joint press release on the deputies to “responsibility”.
According to them, the bill brought by the Renaissance deputy for Val-d’Oise Frédéric Descrozaille, which must officially secure the supply of the French in consumer products, aims rather to “prevent commercial negotiation for the benefit of very large industrialists and will dramatically and sustainably fuel inflation”.
“We will have to spread these increases until the summer”
“If this bill is passed, the inflation of food products will last longer than what we envisaged, indignant Michel-Édouard Leclerc. If prices increase by 12 to 15% in March, we will have to stagger these increases until the summer so that they are sustainable for consumers. I thought at the start that the government was against it, Bruno Le Maire said that it could not pass! And then, finally, it even goes into accelerated procedure. »
At Bercy, however, it is recalled that an amendment was tabled to fight against the inflationary component of the bill. “The communication of the large distribution does not take this amendment into account, we are assured. However, it provides that if there is no agreement between the distributor and its supplier on the prices, they will have one month to discuss and, during this period, the old prices will apply. »
But if this amendment is not passed, the bill provides that in the event of failure of the annual negotiations, the price requested by the suppliers is required, instead of the prices of the previous year which prevailed until now. .