© Reuters. A lady fills her gas tank at a Tremendous U petrol put of dwelling in Vertou, France, September 13, 2023. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe
(Corrects spelling of Elisabeth, paragraph 1)
PARIS (Reuters) – The French authorities plans to temporarily map conclude a ban on retailers selling road fuel below cost as phase of efforts to stem inflationary pressures on households, Top Minister Elisabeth Borne told newspaper Le Parisien.
A renewed surge in pump costs this summer has advanced the authorities’s makes an attempt to curb shopper inflation, with ministers calling on fuel and meals industries to cut their margins.
TotalEnergies (EPA:) has extended a cap on fuel costs past the finish of the 300 and sixty five days while some supermarket chains bear held promotions to sell petrol at cost.
Nonetheless a ban on below-cost selling of fuel, dating reduction to 1963, turned into as soon as preventing distributors from cutting costs extra, Borne said, announcing that the ban may per chance well be lifted for “a couple of months”.
“With this unheard of measure, we can obtain tangible outcomes for the French folks, with out subsidising fuel,” she said in an interview published on Saturday.
She rejected the postulate of the authorities reducing fuel taxes, citing the need to decrease the public deficit and debt while saying that well-organized corporations may per chance well nonetheless play their phase.
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Thursday that high petrol refining profit margins had been a offer for dispute and may per chance well need to be addressed by authorities motion.
Regarding meals costs, Borne told Le Parisien that corporations from November may per chance well be required to indicate on labels after they alter the scale of a product.
So-referred to as “shrinkflation”, whereby merchandise are sold in a smaller amount with out any tag reduction, has grow to be a offer of controversy in meals retailing during a tag spike in the past 300 and sixty five days.
French supermarket chain Carrefour (EPA:) introduced this month it will per chance well region signs in its stores subsequent to merchandise that it chanced on to use such practices.
