According to INSEE, food inflation in October approached 12% year on year, prompting the Minister of Economy to request a study from the General Inspectorate of Finance. This confirms the prior findings of a Senate report released in July 2022.
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“There were no profiteers from inflation in the food sector,” Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire stated in an interview with Le Parisien on Saturday, Nov. 5.
In the midst of a dramatic surge in food prices, the government’s number two had directed the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) to investigate any abusive gains. And the conclusion, he claims, is “beyond appeal”.
“There were no inflation profiteers in food. Neither the farmers, nor the distributors, nor the agri-food industry have taken excessive remuneration in the process,” Bruno Le Maire said.
According to the IGF report consulted on Saturday by AFP, “in total, the rise in food prices results from the combination of several factors, the war in Ukraine, post-Covid recovery, global warming, animal health crisis and various factors of an economic nature (competitiveness of the economy, shortage of labour, etc.)”.
However, at the end of June, the chairman of the strategic committee of E.Leclerc stores, Michel-Edouard Leclerc, had lamented that “half of the increases requested” by manufacturers in the context of renegotiations on the price of foodstuffs intended to be sold by the large surfaces were “not transparent” and were “suspicious”.
A Senate report published on July 19, however, had concluded that with the exception of a few “specific cases”, there was no “generalized phenomenon of excessive increases”.
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A few days later, a report by the deputies Aurélie Trouvé (La France insoumise) and Xavier Albertini (Horizons) did not make it possible to detect “systemic abusive behaviour on the part of manufacturers or distributors” either.
