A tenth of a point more than the first estimate. On Friday September 15, INSEE revised the level of inflation slightly upwards for the month of last August. According to INSEE statistics specialists, the consumer price index stood at 4.9%, compared to a first estimate of 4.8%.
According to INSEE, this inflation was fueled by energy prices which increased by 6.8% year-on-year in August due to the 10% increase in electricity prices and the rebound in prices. price of gasoline. Last July, inflation was 4.3% year-on-year.
Food prices – a key driver of inflation – continued to record a double-digit increase (11.2%), but marked a slowdown compared to July (12.7%). Prices for services (3%) and manufactured goods (3.1%) also slowed.
On the energy issue, the Minister of Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher is starting to clear up the situation for 2024. Friday, on Europe 1, the government member assured that regulated electricity prices would not increase by more than 10% for the whole year. Highlighting the establishment, in the fall of 2021, of an energy shield, the minister recalled in the preamble that the State was currently still responsible for “37% of the French electricity bill” despite the gradual withdrawal of This measure.
“For 2024, indeed, we will gradually withdraw this energy shield, but Bruno Le Maire said it well, the price of electricity will not increase by more than 10% […] on February 1 and overall of the year 2024,” she said. The minister thus hit the nail on the head, the day after the remarks of her colleague from the Economy and Finance: he had ruled out an increase of 10 to 20% in regulated electricity tariffs (TRV) in February 2024.
Given the sensitivity of the subject, in the midst of soaring inflation, Agnès Pannier-Runacher went a little further than Bercy. The minister recalled regarding the Energy Regulatory Commission that “there is a difference between the technical calculation that the CRE makes on what would be the theoretical price that the French should pay in terms of electricity and the price that the French pay.”
The actual increase will not be confirmed until the end of the year, because the decision depends on the government. But the CRE’s mission is to calculate a theoretical tariff, based on market prices. The regulated rate, which benefits the majority of households, is reviewed twice a year, in February and August.
For February 1, 2023, the CRE had calculated an increase in the average level of regulated electricity prices of 99.22%, but the government had decided to limit it to 15%. On August 1, the government decided on a further 10% increase in regulated electricity prices, thus marking the gradual exit from the tariff shield to reduce the burden of these expenses on public finances.
