The French government is pushing the country’s major supermarket chains to combat high inflation by agreeing to sell certain essential goods at discounted prices.
On Monday, 13 February, France’s finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, called upon big retail chains including Carrefour, Casino, Auchan, and E. Leclerc to focus on bringing down prices on an agreed-upon set of 50 everyday items they he labeled an “anti-inflation basket.”
Le Maire said the “anti-inflation basket” program is not mandatory but urged French grocers to embrace the initiative.
"The rise in food prices is a major concern and everyone must [do their] share, including retailers," he told RTL radio, according to Reuters. "The state must do its share but retailers must also do more.”
Thus far, just two grocers, Lidl and Systeme U, have signed on to the government’s initiative. Carrefour and Auchon said they have undertaken their own anti-inflation initiative by freezing prices on a set number of goods. Auchon said its effort had a bigger focus on fresh products including meat, fish, fruit, and vegetables. At the beginning of February, Carrefour launched a discount plan covering 150 private-label products.
Le Maire’s ministry conducted an investigation of the country’s agricultural sector and food retailers in 2022 to determine whether they had engaged in price-gouging, but determined they were not taking advantage of rising inflation to price in higher margins, according to Bloomberg.
The finance ministry conducted an investigation into food retailers' margins last year, but did not find evidence of price gouging. Le Maire found inflation of food prices in France was being caused by the war in Ukraine, the post-Covid economic recovery, global warming, a severe bird flu outbreak, and labor shortages, among other factors.
While not as high as other areas of Europe, France’s overall inflation is predicted to hit 13 percent through the first half of 2023, according to INSEE, France’s National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, with food-price inflation expected to move from 6 percent in January 2023 to 5 percent in June 2023.
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