Use of restaurant vouchers for food shopping: the Assembly adopts an extension until the end of 2024

The National Assembly urgently adopted on Thursday the extension until the end of 2024 of an exemption which allows the use of restaurant vouchers to purchase all food products, even those which are not directly consumable, in a context of inflation still high.

This vote by the Assembly (117 for, 1 against) will still have to be confirmed in the Senate. This exemption, permitted by a law in 2022 on purchasing power, will end on December 31, 2023, unless a text is adopted by parliamentarians, who have sounded the alarm. It allows some 5.4 million employees in France to use their “restaurant vouchers” to purchase non-consumable products on the shelves that need to be prepared (flour, pasta, rice, meat, etc.).

“A useful boost for the purchasing power of millions of employees and their families,” tweeted this Thursday morning the Minister of Commerce, Olivia Grégoire.

The minister and the majority deputies who tabled the text, on the other hand, warned against a broader enlargement or a longer exemption. Recognizing that the Assembly was legislating “urgently” about a month before the extinction of the exemption, the president of the Economic Affairs Committee Guillaume Kasbarian (Renaissance) called for adopting the text as it stands to find a solution. rapid agreement in the Senate.

If the oppositions largely adopted the measure, they all deplored a delayed reaction. Thibault Bazin (LR) even denounced an “attempt to rewrite history” by the government, favorable to the measure even though it did not propose to include it in its 2024 draft budget.

Benjamin Lucas (environmental group) castigated the “amateurism” of the government “each time taken by surprise”. “You manage to present (this exemption) to us as a gift, but meal vouchers are not a gift,” thundered Sophia Chikirou (LFI), arguing that they were partly financed by employees, and criticizing the commissions. perceived by managing companies.

The Assembly rejected amendments from the left or the RN aimed at extending or perpetuating the exemption. Olivia Grégoire promised a discussion in the “first half of 2024” for a broader reform of meal vouchers. Restaurant owners are particularly concerned about an even greater shift in the use of these tickets towards mass distribution, to their detriment. Continuing its use for food shopping would risk causing the loss of the device, the national commission for meal vouchers, a joint body which supervises this means of payment, warned on Tuesday.