French Prime Minister Jean Castex intervened in the heated energy market and announced on Thursday that he would block gas prices until April next year. This is reported by French media.
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On October 1, the minimum price for gas in France will rise by 12.6 percent in one go. An increase that was hard to swallow for many families. Castex is now announcing that this is the last: ‘There will be no more rise in gas prices’, Prime Minister Castex announced during the news broadcast on the French channel TF1. The 12.6 percent increase “will be the last,” he said. He will block gas prices until March, possibly April next year.
‘In March or April the world market prices for gas should fall. We have to bridge that period’, says Castex.
Electricity prices are also being addressed. For example, the expected price increase in February 2022 will be limited to 4 percent and this will be compensated by a tax cut that will be included in the budget, the prime minister continued.
Further measures not excluded
There may be an extra allowance on the energy bill for the very lowest incomes in France via the so-called energy cheque: entitled parties receive 150 euros annually with this check in April. In December, the government decided to pay out an extra 100 euros. If the measures taken prove insufficient, France will reconsider the value of the energy check, says Castex.
Earlier there were already voices to increase the value of the energy voucher and to relax the conditions for entitlement to the energy voucher, so that more households could claim it.
Don’t forget waistcoats
That question does not arise by chance. The regulated electricity price is only changed twice a year, unlike the gas price, which is revised monthly. In September it rose by 8.7 percent, in August by just over 5 percent and in July by 10 percent.
The gilets jaunes have not yet been forgotten in France. In 2018, many French people mobilized in response to the increased petrol prices. With the presidential election in seven months, the government wants to avert a national crisis. By freezing the rise in energy prices until April (when the presidential elections take place), the government is trying to calm things down and take the sting out of a sensitive election topic.
At the moment nothing is being done about the petrol prices themselves.
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