Although the measure may have consensus among consumers, it is not to everyone’s taste. Continuing to use food vouchers for the purchase of food could lead to the loss of this system, warned on Tuesday the National Food Voucher Commission (CNTR), a joint body that supervises this means of payment.
“It is essential that the use of food vouchers be reserved for the acquisition of meals consumed in restaurants or food preparations for immediate consumption,” continues the organization, while the National Assembly must examine on Thursday the extension of the possibility until 2024. to pay all expenses. food purchases with food stamps, which are supposed to expire on January 1.
Role of information, decision and control.
In a context of inflation, several political voices, including that of the Minister of Economy, Bruno Le Maire, have spoken out in favor of perpetuating the possibility of buying food with food vouchers. Restaurateurs are opposed, since chef Thierry Marx, president of the main union of hospitality employers, Umih, asked last week to be received “as soon as possible” by Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne to discuss the matter.
The CNTR, created by the public powers, is under the double supervision of the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Economy. It involves all actors in the system (employers, employees, merchants, issuers) and provides information, decision making and control.
“Putting into question”
“Within the company, this questioning of the meal break causes a deterioration in working conditions, a source of decreased French productivity and, therefore, deterioration of the French economy,” the organization underlines. If “the extension of the use of food vouchers to all food products is understood for cyclical reasons linked to the economic crisis,” “instituting this long-term extension structurally questions the system,” he points out.
With the “risk that the tax exemption for the worker and the social exemption for the employer will be eliminated: in Europe there have been examples of this type that have made the system lose strength,” the organization continues. The CNTR “wants to affirm” the “fundamental role” of the food voucher “while promoting its modernization”, a point on which the organization recalls having debated with the Minister of Commerce, Olivia Grégoire.
Source: BFM TV
