The Minister of the Economy is preparing minds for a new macroeconomic deal. Because if France is “winning the fight” against rising prices, it will not return to the “very low” or even zero inflation rates that prevailed before the Covid-19 pandemic, warned Monday Bruno Le Maire. “Inflation is starting to fall after months of fighting against price increases”, which exceeded 6% over one year at the start of the year, underlined the Minister of the Economy on Radio J. “We are in winning this fight (…) long and difficult”, he rejoiced.
However, “will we come out of this crisis to maintain inflation levels like those we experienced before the Covid crisis? The answer is no,” said Bruno Le Maire. This for “two very structural reasons”, explained the Minister: “The first is that we have decided to put the value chains back in France and that it is more expensive to produce electric batteries in France than to produce them. import from China, so it has a structurally inflationary effect,” he explained.
“The second reason is the climate transition: it has a cost and will weigh on prices in the years to come,” added Bruno Le Maire. “We have seen much lower rates in the past years. I don’t think we’re going back to those very low rates, around 0%, that we’ve had in past years,” he concluded. The consumer price index rose in May by 5.1% over one year, according to figures from INSEE, which is due to publish a first estimate of inflation for the month of June on Friday.
