While inflation of food products approached 12 % over a year in October according to INSEE, the Minister of the Economy had asked for a study from the General Inspectorate of Finance. This confirms the previous results of a senatorial report in July 2022.
Le Monde with AFP
“There were no inflation profiteers in food,” said the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, in an interview with the newspaper Le Parisien . In a context of a high increase in food prices, number two of the government had commissioned the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) to determine whether or not there have been abusive profits.
“The conclusion is final: there have been no inflation profiteers in food. Neither farmers nor distributors nor the food industry took excessive remuneration” , he added. According to the IGF report consulted on Saturday by the France-Presse agency (AFP), “in total, the rise in food prices results from the combination of several factors: war in Ukraine, post-Cavid recovery, global warming , Animal health crisis and various factors of an economic nature (competitiveness of the economy, shortage of labor …) “.
At the end of June, the chairman of the E.Leclerc store strategic committee, Michel-Edouard Leclerc, had deplored that “half of the requested increases” by industrialists in the context of renegotiations on the price of foodstuffs intended to be sold by The supermarkets were “not transparent” and were “suspect”.
A senatorial report published on July 19, however, concluded that with the exception of some “special cases” there was not observed “generalized phenomenon of abusive increases”. A few days later, a report by deputies Aurélie found (La France Insoumise) and Xavier Albertini (Horizons) had not made it possible to detect “systemic abusive behavior on the part of industrialists or distributors”.
+ 60 % for oils, + 20 % for pasta
The IGF has selected a sample of twelve daily food products (chicken cutlet, plain yogurt, wand, etc.) and studied the evolution in the raw margin of the different actors of the production chain. The analysis reveals on the one hand “that the agrifood industry has compressed its margins” and on the other hand that “mass distribution has not contributed to adding the consumption prices of food products”, therefore denying the hypothesis of inflation suffered only by the end consumer.
Despite this sharing of effort, and inflation lower in France to that of other European countries, the IGF stresses that in one year, “certain food products have experienced particularly high price increases, with by by Example + 60 % for oils, + 22 % for flour, + 20 % for pasta and + 16 % for poultry “.
Always on the question of purchasing power, Bruno Le Maire proposed in his interview to the Parisian to organize in early 2023 a “Convention on the Sharing of value”, within the Renaissance Party. Even if he reaffirms in the interview his preference for the “employee dividend”, the Minister of the Economy suggests associating within this agreement “economists, business leaders, employees and opposition groups to identify New ideas in addition to the work undertaken with the social partners “.
Finally, Bruno Le Maire recalled his intention that France puts in place “a minimum world tax on companies at 15 % in early 2023”, if no agreement takes place at European level by December. The Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Germany will set up a similar national taxation “in the same calendar”, in accordance with a commitment made in September.