“France is emerging from the inflationary crisis”, believes Bruno Le Maire

This should relieve French consumers. Inflation slowed significantly in France in October, to 4% over one year after 4.9% in September, according to provisional data communicated Tuesday by INSEE.

This drop in inflation is due, according to the Institute of Statistics, to the slowdown over one year in the prices of energy, food and, to a lesser extent, manufactured products. The prices of services would accelerate slightly. Over one month, consumer prices should increase by 0.1% in October 2023, after -0.5% in September.

Following the publication of the INSEE results, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire estimated that France is “in the process of emerging from the inflationary crisis”. “There cannot be solid growth if we do not get rid of inflation definitively: we are emerging from the inflationary crisis, it is a success for the government's economic policy which has saved French households , alone among all European countries, double-digit inflation rates for several months,” he told journalists.

The Minister of the Economy also reaffirmed the government's objective of falling below this 4% inflation mark “before the end of 2023”. “This decline in inflation should allow us to meet our growth objectives in 2024 as we met our objectives for 2023,” he maintained.

For her part, the Minister Delegate in charge of Trade and Tourism Olivia Grégoire intends to continue the fight against the surge in prices in businesses. “We cannot be satisfied with still high inflation, particularly on food products, even if it has been slowing down for several weeks. We want to amplify this movement by anticipating commercial negotiations to have, from the start of 2024, a visible price drop on a certain number of products,” she declared.