Too cheap? France argues about baguette price.
The French supermarket chain Leclerc has landed a coup: it is selling baguettes for 29 cents for a period of six months. That’s about a quarter of what you’d pay for the crusty baguette in a regular Parisian bakery.
How Leclerc gets his margins is unknown. In France, it is inherently illegal to sell food below production cost. Industry experts assume that the 720 Leclerc stores in the country are thinning out the ingredients and relying on quantity to attract new customers en masse. Always good at swimming against the tide with cheap promotions, Michel-Edouard Leclerc went one better on the radio: The 69-year-old retailer implicitly accuses his competitors of using inflation as an opportunity to fleece customers. He doesn’t do that.
The spectacular Leclerc operation is causing an outcry beyond the industry – and is becoming an explosive political issue in the current inflationary phase. Dominique Anract of the Bakery Association called the action “provocative, shocking, scandalous and disgraceful”. The head of the agricultural association FNSEA, Christine Lambert, agreed and said the supermarket chain, with its “low-cost baguette”, despises the work of bread makers “who get up at three or four every day”.
The PR campaign is also inconvenient for the government in Paris. Presidential and parliamentary elections are coming up in France, and Head of State Emmanuel Macron is having trouble keeping the situation on the Covid front under control during the current election campaign. He knows how sensitive the issue of inflation is and how quickly the mood in the country can turn against the state leadership.
Economics Minister Bruno Lemaire announced last week that he would block electricity prices if they exceeded four percent in the current year. Now, when savvy retailers start manipulating prices, further danger is at hand. The yellow vest uprising three years ago is still in Macron’s bones to this day. The rise in the price of basic foodstuffs, energy and services hits the poor in particular, often sympathizers of the “gilets jaunes”.
Government officials are also stirring up sentiment against Leclerc and appealing to people’s national pride. They recall that France is asking for the baguette to be included on the Unesco World Heritage List. The cheap version does the candidacy a disservice, especially since, according to the first buyers, it tastes more like cardboard.
