The price increase will slow down slowly, reaching 5.5 % in the middle of the year, according to INSEE forecasts.
by Béatrice Madeline
For economists, and undoubtedly in the collective memory, the year 2022 will remain that of the great return of inflation. She who had almost disappeared for a quarter of a century. The rise in prices initiated by the extent of the post-Cavid-19 recovery, in mid-2021, has become a lasting and pernicious phenomenon. “What was initially considered to be a provisional reestablishment of prices after postpandemia reopening has turned into persistent inflation,” notes Gilles Moëc, chief economist of the AXA group and director of research at AXA IM, in a note published on 1
At the end of 2022, inflation crosses the 10 % mark in the countries of the euro zone (10.1 %, according to Eurostat, at the end of November). However, a figure slightly dismissed, the index that reached 10.6 % in early October. In France, the energy shield made it possible to contain the prices a little: over twelve months, it reached 6.2 %, according to the Franco-French index (Consumer price index of INSEE).
The harmonized index, which allows fairer comparisons with the rest of the euro zone, amounted to 7.1 % over a year, at the end of November, against 11.3 % in Germany, and until 23.1 % in Hungary, or more than 21 % in Baltic countries. For consumers, this price increase is all the more penalizing as it first affects the products which it is difficult to deprive: energy, of course, that by which it all started. Over one year, gas, petroleum and electricity will have taken an average of more than 20 %.
But it also strongly affects food products, which since the start of the school year, the locomotive of inflation. Fresh products, meat, fish, vegetables, cereals, grocery will have increased, at the end of December, by 12.5 % in France, a figure which is explained by the transmission of energy prices to production or transport costs and by The rise in fertilizers, often derived from oil.
Faced with this inflationary crisis, central banks have taken out the heavy weapon. In 2022, they proceeded to the strongest tightening of the monetary policy intervened since the financial crisis of 2008-2009. But the weapon of interest rates does not produce an immediate reaction: it takes several quarters to see inflation slow down. Within the euro zone, economists place the peak in the first half of 2023.
In France, “inflation will last and accelerate” at the beginning of 2023, warns Stéphane Colliac, economist at BNP Paribas. Indeed, the French will face at the beginning of the year on the reverse of the tariff shield medal set up in 2022 – precisely to protect them from inflation. The delivery of 10 euro cents granted to the pump on the liter of fuel will disappear under the Flonflons de la Sil-Sylvestre.
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