Faced with soaring fuel prices, and less than a month before the presidential election, Prime Minister Jean Castex announced a “discount at the pump of 15 cents per liter” of fuel, from April 1 and during four months.
This measure, which will cost the state around 2 billion euros, concerns households as well as businesses and will be “valid on all fuels”, said the Prime Minister in an interview with the newspaper Le Parisien.
The prices of all fuels, and in particular diesel, have been rising continuously for more than two months, in France as in the rest of Europe and elsewhere, making it one of the important topics of the electoral campaign, with the inflation in general. The rise was caused by oil production failing to keep pace with the strong global economic recovery, which was further accelerated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In France, on average, a liter of diesel was worth 1.8831 euro in the first week of March, but prices today greatly exceed 2 euros in many service stations.
The discount will be made at the time of payment, at the cash desk or by credit card at the pump, and will therefore not be immediately visible on the prices displayed, detailed the head of government.
If the State will then “reimburse” the distributors, Jean Castex called on them, just like the “oil companies”, to make “an additional gesture” themselves. “Discussions” on this point are underway, said Matignon who detected “positive signals”.
“How would the French understand that they pay a full tank of diesel at 2 euros, while at the same time the oil companies are still making big profits,” he wondered.
The announcement made the contenders for the Elysée react: insufficient for Marine Le Pen, for whom “the government is making fun of us by lowering the price by 15 cents” ten days before the first round on April 10.
The communist candidate Fabien Roussel asked to go further and to block prices at 1.70 euro per litre.
No clientelism, defended Jean Castex: “Do you see me telling them + circulate, there is nothing to see! + because there is an election in less than thirty days? It is not my conception of my responsibility”.
– More than 22 billion euros –
Jean-Yves Mano, president of the consumer defense association CLCV, told AFP that he saw a “concrete response” but regretted that it would have to wait until April 1 for its implementation.
For Pierre Chasseray, general delegate of 40 million motorists, the gesture is “just normal” since “the State is currently reaping VAT revenues which exceed the planned budget”.
Matignon defends himself by recalling that the government has already taken a battery of measures to try to stem the effects of the continuous rise in energy prices for months, aggravated by the invasion of Ukraine: blocking the price of gas until the end of 2022, limitation to 4% of the increase in the price of electricity, exceptional energy check, inflation allowance for 38 million people, or even an increase in the scale of mileage allowances.
The total bill for energy measures had even been quantified at some 22 billion euros by the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire, including 10 billion euros for the gas price freeze and 8 billion euros for the cap. electricity tariffs.
With the global tremors in energy markets, oil prices fluctuated this week. Michel-Edouard Leclerc, the president of the strategic committee of E.Leclerc stores, even anticipated on Friday on BFMTV that prices would drop on Monday.
Not enough to call into question the measure according to Matignon, who will re-examine it in the event of a fall in prices, a scenario however “unlikely” given that oil prices were already high before the Russian-Ukrainian crisis.
Mr. Castex must also unveil next week “an economic and social resilience plan” in the face of the consequences of the war, which will complete this discount measure.
He also promised for fishermen “measures allowing a lowering of their social and port charges”.
