“Let’s stop playing with the fears of the French.” Invited to RMC and BFMTV on Monday, Bruno Le Maire denounced the speech of the large retailers who have warned for several weeks of a “red” March, with a new rise in food prices on the shelves at a time when that the Commercial negotiations between manufacturers and distributors end.
Although he acknowledged that “consumer prices have risen by around 13%” in hypermarkets and supermarkets, and that “we are going to stay at price levels that (…) are very high, there is no reason to turn these prices on.” starting in March”, insisted Bruno Le Maire.
Exit from inflation “around mid-2023”
These kinds of predictions, like those of certain “meteorologists” who promised “recession, unemployment and vague bankruptcies, do not correspond to reality,” the minister continued. “Yes, the situation is difficult but the results of the French economy are solid. Unemployment continues to fall and I maintain that we should be out of inflation by mid-2023,” he said.
Bruno Le Maire also considered that “except for a major international event, linked in particular to the war in Ukraine, which hangs like a sword of Damocles over all our heads (…), we should, from 2024, return to a cycle of powerful growth”. , particularly around the decarbonisation of the economy and the climate transition”.
The buried anti-inflation basket?
If the Finance Minister expects a decline in inflation in the coming months, however, he called on all dealers to “make extra efforts to protect the purchasing power of the French”, believing that “we will be able to beat inflation if we collectively , if everyone gets involved: the State, the companies, everyone”.
The Bercy tenant will receive in this sense the actors of the large distribution this week to “find a solution together” before the price rise. Because “getting in front of a microphone and telling the French ‘it’s going to be terrible, it’s going to be horrible’, that doesn’t make many things happen”, Bruno Le Maire attacked again.
Among the options initially raised by the government: the “anti-inflation basket.” Finally, “I don’t know if it will be an anti-inflationary basket. It will be what is most useful and effective for distributors,” announced the Economy Minister, who set March 15 as the deadline to “find an operational solution together.”
Finally, Bruno Le Maire indicated that Bercy is going to carry out a new “investment in the spring to make sure that no one is lining their pockets in this period that is so hard for all our compatriots”. The last survey concluded in November that there were no “speculators” of the crisis at this stage, neither among distributors nor among manufacturers.
Source: BFM TV
