The announcements had been eagerly awaited for several days. The opposition did not fail to castigate the government’s wait-and-see attitude, while gas, electricity and fuel prices are at their highest. After several days of procrastination, Bruno Le Maire notably evoking the difficulty of setting up a fuel check, the executive decided.
Jean Castex, in the journal of 20 hours of TF1, announced the establishment of a “middle class allowance” of 100 euros, directly affecting 38 million French people who earn less than 2,000 euros net per month. It will be paid automatically to employees at the end of December, and at the beginning of 2022 for the other beneficiary categories. Indeed, retirees, but also apprentices, scholarship students and fiscally independent students earning less than 2,000 euros are concerned. A “fair and effective” measure according to Jean Castex.
The government therefore preferred to release 3.8 billion euros to help a large part of the population rather than a targeted fuel check. The Prime Minister explained this, describing the fuel check as a “gas plant” which would also have benefited better-off people. Jean Castex also justified that “it is not only gasoline” which increases, and that the measure is supposed to answer fears on the fall of the purchasing power. A reduction in taxes would have cost far too much, up to 500,000 euros per cent of tax, and also benefited the better-off.
The price of gas frozen until the end of 2022
The measure was immediately criticized by the opposition. While Senator LR Bruno Retailleau castigates “a new wooden check financed by debt”, the left believes that this compensation, insufficient, will limit neither the rise in prices in the short term, nor the dependence on the car in the medium term.
It is therefore the State which will compensate for the absence of an increase in wages. After having exempted employers from contributions, we continue to exempt them even from direct wages.
– Melusine (@ Melusine_2) October 21, 2021
Matignon has also adjusted its “tariff shield” on energy prices. While a freeze on the regulated gas tariff had been put in place until April, to avoid suffering from insane inflation in the sector, it will finally be extended until the end of 2022. “The decline will be slower. than expected, ”says Jean Castex.