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At a time when we talk a lot about purchasing power, the 13 Heures team wondered about the reality of the inflation that is often attributed to the changeover to the euro. This currency replaced the franc on January 1, 2002. Twenty years later, apart from the fact that there are still nostalgic people who count in francs, was it better before?
The end of the franc is already twenty years old, it was January 1, 2002. Today, this currency is sometimes still in the minds of some French people. Do they remember the price of the baguette? 4.45 francs at the time, or 0.68 euros, whereas today, it costs an average of 0.87 euros. As for the coffee, it cost 8 francs or 1.22 euros. Today, it’s more like 1.39 euros on average. For many French people, the person responsible for this price increase has been found: the changeover to the euro.
The feeling of soaring prices is mainly linked to increases in everyday products, according to Aurélien BaudaireHead of the Insee Consumer Prices Department: “There were upward rounding effects on food, rather downward rounding effects on products such as household appliances, but this in a fairly marginal way”. In total, there has been a price increase of 30% since 2002, but wages have also increased: more than 50% in twenty years on average. Result: the purchasing power of the French did not decrease over this period.