This is an expected but painful consequence of the gradual end of the tariff shield already announced by the executive. The French will have to face a 10% increase in electricity prices, starting on August 1, the ministries of the Economy and Energy Transition jointly confirmed on Tuesday morning.
This increase will concern above all all French households, but also small businesses (small businesses, craftsmen), “connected to a meter with a power of up to 36 kilovolt-amperes”, specified the cabinets of ministers. Concretely, for a household heating with electricity, “before the increase, the bill was around 1640 euros per year. After the increase, it will be at 1800 euros”, an increase of 160 euros on average, calculates the government.
In addition, on Monday evening, the government seized the Higher Energy Council (CSE) on regulated electricity sales tariffs, in order to obtain its opinion on the upcoming price increase. However, this has been strongly contained by the measures put in place by the government: according to estimates by the Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE), electricity prices would have jumped by 35% in 2022. and 100% in 2023 without the tariff shield.
Although brutal, this increase was planned, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire having already announced at the end of April a gradual exit from the tariff shield on electricity but also on gas by the beginning of 2025. The exit of these devices will however be done gradually, and in a supervised way, had specified the minister, “so as not to worry our compatriots”. These announcements go hand in hand with the executive’s desire to tighten the screws on public accounts, in order to somehow reduce a public debt approaching 3000 billion euros. “It’s time to put the accounts squarely,” had notably defended the Minister of the Economy.
More recently, the Minister Delegate for Public Accounts Gabriel Attal had in turn confirmed during an interview on RTL that the government would “gradually” put an end, by the end of 2024, to the tariff shield on energy prices introduced for fight against inflation, removing the doubt on its possible extension in 2025. “That means we’re going to have to gradually get out of the tariff shield on energy prices,” he said in particular.
For the government, this could represent nearly 14 billion euros in savings, to which is also added the end of the support desk for companies that consume a lot of energy. And this, in a context where these measures have already been very expensive: the cost of the energy shield for households, communities and businesses was estimated, at the end of last year, at 110 billion euros between 2021 and 2023.
