a collective of bakers seizes the Council of State to request the extension of the tariff shield

They protest against the explosion of electricity prices. A collective of bakers has seized the Council of State for the tariff shield, which limits the rise in energy prices to 15% for some, to be extended to all bakers, their lawyer announced on Wednesday March 1. The initiative is led by the Union of Independent Artisan Bakers created to “alert the public authorities and obtain concrete help from the government” in order to cope with the rise in prices, which have been multiplied by “4 to 10”.

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“Since 2020, artisan bakers have had to deal in quick succession with the Covid-19 pandemic, which has led to a spectacular drop in their turnover due to confinement, with a rise in the price of raw materials (in particular butter and wheat) and a spike in energy prices”, they explain in the text. The bakers had already demonstrated at the end of January to ask for more aid from the government.

The collective denounces a “distortion of competition”

According to them, the government’s measures are not enough and create “a distortion of competition between artisan bakers consuming less than 36 kVA [kilovoltampères]who can benefit from the tariff shield capping the increase for 2023 at 15%, and artisan bakers with a power greater than 36kVA who are excluded from it”. For the latter, the government has announced an “electricity shock absorber” which benefits SMEs and a price cap of 280 euros per megawatt hour for energy-intensive VSEs.

According to the executive’s estimates, the shock absorber should relieve contractors of 15 to 20% of their electricity bill, which the state pays for. But for the collective of bakers, its implementation is “of such complexity that even electricity suppliers do not know how to use it” and the beneficiaries must still advance the costs, “without being certain of one day receiving the promised aid”. They fear temporary closures and layoffs.