a bloody bill for traders

In Mont-Saint-Aignan (Seine-Maritime), Jean-Christophe Gréaume has dimmed the light in his butcher’s shop. “We turned off everything that is lighting at the time of payment, and which has less importance vis-à-vis the window. But it’s a candle’s end of savings all the same”, he said. For the rest, energy savings are impossible. “What consumes the most is our cold rooms in fact. And that is incompressible, we have to keep the temperatures”he adds.

The butcher has decided not to increase his prices for the time being. His contract with his electricity supplier is coming to an end, and the prices announced are explosive: almost 15 times more expensive. The competition’s prices are even worse. With ten employees, the couple of traders does not know if it will last. “The solution is really that we are helped. If we are not helped, we will work at a loss, or we will close”, he laments. The contract renewal of Pascal Hauguel, fishmonger, will arrive in 2023. He too fears for his future. Like him, half of French companies will have to renew their supply contract in early 2023, with the risk of greatly multiplied prices.