Will it still be possible to buy a packet of pasta and minced steaks with your meal vouchers? Maybe not: from January 2024, only directly consumable products will be affected by these paper tickets and magnetic cards. This is, in reality, a “return to normal”, since an exemption was granted by the government in the summer of 2022 to restore purchasing power to the French.
But the planned end of this relaxation arouses the anger of all the oppositions. What impact on the daily life and diet of the French? We talk about it with the MoDem deputy for Loiret Richard Ramos, former gastronomic critic and slayer of junk food.
What needs to change on January 1, 2024?
The scope of meal vouchers had been expanded October 1, 2022 within the framework of the purchasing power law, to allow employees to purchaseall food products (flour, pasta, rice, eggs, butter, milk, fish, meat, etc.). But this possibility of using them for shopping was only temporary: the text of the law provided for the end of this expansion on December 31, 2023.
From next year, therefore, in theory, meal vouchers can only be used to purchase products that can be consumed immediately, such as prepared meals, salads, fruit or even sandwiches. The objective: to return to the initial principle of the system, which allows the 5 million employees who benefit from it to use them during their lunch break in supermarkets, bakeries or restaurants.
Why is this controversial?
Because inflation still remains very high. France is now a bad student in Europe with cumulative food inflation of 17.9% between January 2022 and August 2023, according to the NielsenIQ panelist barometer for LSA magazine. “It was an exceptional measure, it worked. Removing it today would be real bullshit, breathes Richard Ramos. We still have inflation and families within 10 euros at the end of the month. Allowing them to buy a little food with meal vouchers, even if it was not originally intended for that, it remains useful,” continues the elected representative of the presidential majority, while more than one French out of three have deprived themselves of at least one meal over the past year, according to an Ipsos study for Secours populaire published in September.
Many political leaders reacted to this end of the exemption. “Endless pettiness of the government which wants to prevent the French from using meal vouchers to buy essential food,” denounced communist leader Fabien Roussel on X (ex-Twitter). “The government is taking a socially dramatic measure for millions of French people caught in the throat by inflation. This indifference to suffering is no longer acceptable,” also reacted Marine Le Pen, the boss of RN deputies.
What does this have to do with junk food?
For MP Richard Ramos, the end of this measure would also be bad for the health of the French. “Employees will no longer be able to buy enough to prepare a small salad or a pasta dish. We’re going to push them to buy boxes of pasta full of additives, or disgusting triangle sandwiches with nitrite ham and industrial mayo,” he criticizes. “This limitation will therefore push people, particularly the most precarious, to stop cooking and switch to junk food,” he regrets.
Could the government extend the measure?
Questioned on this subject during questions to the government this Tuesday, the executive preferred to kick in. Contacted by 20 minutes, the ministry in charge of Small and Medium Enterprises, Commerce, Crafts and Tourism tells us that “discussions with stakeholders continue” to find a solution. Bruno Le Maire confirms that an extension of the exemption is currently “studied”.
“I have every confidence in Olivia Grégoire, she must find a path of balance by maintaining a few products in this system which will allow people to cook for themselves,” suggests Richard Ramos. The subject could soon be debated in the National Assembly, since the deputy RN Thomas Ménage announced the tabling of a bill aimed at “extending and extending this system until December 31, 2024”.