The reduction in the price of fuel in France subsidized with public money increases from this Thursday and, for two months, from 18 to 30 cents per liter, to which an additional 20 cents are added at gas stations of TotalEnergies, which has joined the operation under pressure from the Government.
The reduction subsidized by the State will decrease to 10 cents per liter from November 1 and will disappear at the end of the year. In those last two months of 2022, TotalEnergies will also reduce yours to 10 cents at its 3,500 gas stations.
This measure to contain inflation was decided in July and was the result of an agreement between the President’s Executive, Emmanuel Macron, and the traditional right-wing party, the Republicans.
All drivers can benefit, both for private and professional use, and it covers all fuels.
The Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne, acknowledged this Thursday in an interview on the France Inter radio station that it is “quite paradoxical” that public money is being used to subsidize fossil fuels, when the priority political objective is to favor the energy transition, for example by promoting the change of vehicles with combustion engine for other electric ones.
But he considered that it is justified by “the articulation between the urgency, because we are not going to put the French in difficulties, but we must accompany them with the cost of fuel; and the preparation of the future.”
In any case, Borne stressed that he maintains his intention to create a device to encourage the rental of electric vehicles and develop public transport.
TotalEnergies applies, for its part, the reduction in response to the warnings of the Executive, which has asked companies that have exceptional profits as a result of the energy crisis aggravated by the war in Ukraine that, at least part of that money, go to the French, either in the prices of their products, or in the form of wage increases for their employees.
The prime minister reiterated this Thursday the threat that, “if the companies do not show responsibility”, she does not rule out the creation of a tax on these benefits.
At a TotalEnergies gas station in Paris, a young man who put fuel explained to Efe that the discounts in force as of today are going “very well, because it was quite expensive in recent weeks.”
“Two weeks ago filling the tank cost a hundred euros and you had to pay attention to those things. Today it is cheaper, that is, it is more normal than before. Then it is good,” he added.
Another motorist at the same gas station assured that these discounts allow to have “more money that you can spend on something else”. “These gas prices are pretty good,” he said. “Having a full tank for 20 euros is something I haven’t seen in three months, and that’s crazy.”
