Pourquoi la baisse des prix du gazole de 12 à 18 centimes est loin d’être garantie dès ce 1er novembre

A firmly expected decline. At the beginning of October, on the sidelines of a G7 meeting on energy, Emmanuel Macron made a promise: on November 1, the price of diesel will drop by 12 to 18 cents per liter. This is made possible thanks to the release of 10 million barrels of diesel, from strategic stocks purchased before the war in Iran, to reduce the price at the pump, today set at 2.38 euros per liter.

A response which, on paper, seems rather well calibrated to relieve motorists who drive diesel (67% of French consumption in January 2026) who have gone so far as to reduce their travel in recent months. As proof, fuel consumption fell by 12 points in one year in September 2026 in France, according to figures transmitted by Bercy.

To restart the machine, France will irrigate the distributor market with 10 million barrels, distributed equitably over three months, at the pre-war price in Iran. Enough to allow a reduction of up to “18 cents per liter” at the pump from November 1, Bercy further assured this Thursday, October 29 during a press brief. A beautiful program behind which lies a complex implementation that is still uncertain in many aspects.

“We will be ready,” assured Philippe Casbas, president of UFIP Énergies et Mobilités, on RMC on Wednesday October 28. The head of the French Union of Petroleum Industries qualified his remarks a few seconds later: “November 1st is a Sunday so I am not absolutely certain that it will be in place on D-Day.”

This Thursday, however, he assures us the opposite. “Everyone is on target to make it effective on November 1,” Philippe Casbas told HuffPost, recognizing that things have changed a lot in recent days. According to his information, the drop in prices is possible on this date because the sales contracts should be signed "Friday or Saturday", with the largest distributors taking priority. However, as soon as the contract is signed, the delivery can then be made. And this, even before the delivery of these famous strategic stocks, as set out in a decree published last Saturday. “This will arrive at stations in the following days. It requires a bit of logistics for the trucks to actually take out these stocks,” Bercy explains to us.

The decree allows them to not wait for these trucks to lower their prices as quickly as possible. “We did everything so that the reduction could be put in place on the 1st,” we are told, without failing to mention the aid for heavy commuters extended until December. However, the Ministry of the Economy is a little less firm on the timetable than the president of Ufip, and is counting on “a drop shown on November 1 or 2”.

Machine-translated from French