Faced with inflation, Nadia Ziane, director of the consumption department of the association Familles Rurales, wants the government to create a “food allowance” to help the French to “eat healthy”.
Nadia Ziane, director of the consumption department of the Familles Rurales association, asks the government this Friday on franceinfo “a monthly food allowance” to help French people affected by inflation “to eat healthy”Otherwise “we will pay even more for it tomorrow”, she warns. While inflation continues to rise in France, households are forced to make “Arbitrations on fruits, vegetables, legumes, all these products that will help make us feel good”she explains.
The Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire promises an agreement with the distribution to protect certain food products from inflation. “It’s a track that seems interesting to us” provided that the “healthy products” are concerned and that “the whole of the distribution undertakes” to “make visible”.
franceinfo: Do you fear inflation that will continue to climb in the spring?
Nadia Ziane: We can already see how difficult it is for families today and how difficult it was last year. We are faced with an inflation that lasts and that puts enormous pressure on millions of households. And in addition, at the moment, we have a very bad alignment of the planets insofar as the price shield still plays its role, but much less than last year, we have a 15% increase in gas prices and of electricity. We also have the rebate on fuel which stopped when prices rose and therefore ultimately the adjustment variable has always been food. Basically, with what is left at the end of the month, we do our shopping and there is less and less left.
What are the consequences for families?
We notice that the families are going to make decisions, give up on fruits, vegetables, legumes, all these products that will contribute to making us feel good. What seems absurd and completely incoherent to us is that if these families are not helped, we are not accompanying them today to eat healthily, in any case, we will pay even more dearly for it tomorrow, since ‘we have an absolutely enormous development of cardiovascular diseases, overweight, obesity, certain cancers which we now know are linked to an unsuitable diet. We say to the government, we have already taken too long to ensure that these families eat properly, even if they do not have the means to do so. We need to help them fill their basket properly through a monthly food allowance.
Bruno Le Maire promises an agreement with the distribution to protect certain products from inflation. This is a good thing ?
This is a track that seems interesting to us on two cumulative conditions. First, the products which are in quotation marks protected by this inflation should be healthy products. We must now encourage families to eat properly and really aim for products, which are also very well listed by the National Health Nutrition Plan. There are twelve categories. Distributors would have to commit today on about fifty of these products not to pass on inflation too strongly. That doesn’t mean they’re selling at a loss. As a reminder, we have a resale threshold at a loss which allows them even today to keep a margin which remains substantial and which consumers pay. The idea is that on around fifty products which we know are compatible with a healthy diet, the entire distribution undertakes not to make too many margins and, at the same time, to make visible these products.