Wearing a white cap, Eveline pushes her half-empty shopping cart through the crowded parking lot of a large supermarket in the southwest of Fort-de-France. A pack of water, yoghurt or even fruit, the pensioner, like many others, complains of prices that “strangle” the inhabitants of Martinique.
Like Eveline, all the customers of this supermarket interviewed by AFP testify to prices that are often exorbitant compared to those in mainland France.
“I don’t eat meat anymore,” says Lise Castania in front of her car. On the chain, frozen steaks from a major brand are sold at 19.46 euros per kilo, compared to 10.71 euros sold on the Drive web platform of Leclerc of Montpellier.
This forty-something, who arrived in Martinique about a month ago from the Paris suburbs, is “looking for promotions.”
“300 euros minimum”
“Last time there was a Nutella promotion, I bought 3 or 4 jars for the kids,” she says, adding that she spends “at least €300 on groceries every week,” compared to “maybe” €200 in Ile-de-France.
With the trunk open, her hands holding a package of 144 nappies – “the cheapest ones” – and two packets of water, Elodie, 32 years old and mother of two children, spent 42 euros.
A 6x1L pack of Evian costs 8.51 euros in this supermarket on this island of about 350,000 inhabitants, almost 7,000 kilometres from Paris. The 6×1.5L pack of local water, Lafort, costs 3.85 euros.
But buying local products doesn’t solve everything, says Elodie: “Dessert bananas cost less” in France, while plantations are often located in Martinique.
“It may be utopian, but we would have liked, as French citizens, to be even more in line with the prices of mainland France,” adds her husband Gaël, echoing the demand of the RPPRAC, the collective leading the movement of anger against the high cost of living launched at the beginning of September. A curfew was imposed in certain neighbourhoods and extended until Thursday to tackle urban violence.
When the stylist mentions the cost of transport for imports, he insists: “There are prices that are not justified.”
Questioned last week by AFP, experts mentioned the cost of transport, the issue of limited competition between distributors, but also the issue of the dock duty, a customs tax applied to imports.
“If we don’t want to get depressed, we should above all not compare (…) what we bought in Paris and what we bought here,” says Cynthia.
“Raising awareness”
The Kiprix website, created by Robeen Simeon, allows you to compare prices between the Internet Drive app of a Leclerc in Martinique and two brands of the same brand, in Toulouse and Montpellier.
In Martinique, according to a 2022 INSEE study, food prices were 40% higher than in France.
Behind his round glasses and three-day beard, Robeen Simeon, a developer from Martinique, scrolls through the products on his computer screen. There are around 9,000 listed.
“500-gram Barilla pasta, Penne, is sold in Martinique for 2 euros and in (metropolitan) France we find it for 1.02 euros,” he says, based in a coworking space in Fort-de-France.
She launched her platform in mid-September, based on an idea from her father, amid the movement against the high cost of living, and says she has received a lot of encouragement from consumers.
While the 28-year-old admits that these comparisons may be a source of fear for Martinicans, he hopes to “raise awareness.”
The inhabitants of Guadeloupe and Reunion, where life is expensive, have also asked him to “do the same with their islands”.
Their goal: to offer information on places where to buy at the best price in order to “regain some purchasing power.”
Source: BFM TV
