You may have received the inflation allowance of 100 euros, decided by the government at the end of last year, to cope with soaring energy prices. A device deemed not really convincing by Marine Le Pen. The candidate for the Rassemblement national was the guest of franceinfo on Monday March 21: “The inflation check, typically, is a measure that has been implemented anyhowshe explains on franceinfo. That is to say that people who did not have a car received it. Prison inmates received it. And on the other hand, a lot of people who were at the limit of the threshold did not receive it.”
Purchasing power ➡️ “The government has proposed a 15 cent reduction on April 1. It’s a form of scam”, says Marine Le Pen, candidate for the RN. She proposes the “reduction of VAT to 5.5% ” on energy. It would cost “12 billion euros: I assume them” pic.twitter.com/XQw8tvdk8i
— franceinfo (@franceinfo) March 21, 2022
Contrary to what Marine Le Pen says, having a car or not is not a criterion for the payment of this bonus. In reality, the inflation allowance is essentially conditional on income. This aid was paid to employees, self-employed, retired, unemployed or scholarship students who earn less than 2,000 euros net per month. This is supposed to correspond to around 38 million French people, whether they are motorists or not. Moreover, this inflation allowance had not been decided solely to deal with the rise in the price of fuels but of energies more broadly, such as gas or electricity.
Concerning the detainees, it’s true: some prisoners have received this compensation, but it concerns a minority of people. Only those who are in vocational training. They were around 15% in 2018, according to figures from the Ministry of Justice. The other detainees, even if they work or benefit from certain minimum social benefits, were not eligible for this allowance.
Finally, Marine Le Pen criticizes too broad a measure by evoking “a lot of people who were on the edge of the threshold”. She is not the only one to have made this criticism. At the time of the vote last November, the Senate had challenged the text to propose more targeted measures. Opposition from left and right criticized the government in particular for taking into account only individual income, and not household income. A choice motivated at the time by the government, which wanted to create a system that was simple and quick to set up.