Les prix du gazole ont-ils baissé grâce aux réserves stratégiques ? Les chiffres en demi-teinte du gouvernement

A situation improving at the pump? Yes, wants to believe the government which puts forward encouraging figures, although slightly mixed. The price of diesel has already fallen by “12 to 18 cents” per liter in “more than half” of service stations in France, in connection with the government destocking of strategic reserves, Minister of Commerce Serge Papin said on RTL on Monday, November 2.

The French government announced in October that consumers would benefit from such reductions from November 1 thanks to the sale at cost price to distributors of barrels of diesel from strategic stocks. “The distributors are playing the game since today, this [Monday] morning, as we speak, there are more than half of the stations which have lowered prices by 12 to 18 cents,” declared Serge Papin in his interview on RTL, an extract of which you can find below.

“This means that the vast majority of French people have access to a price which is lowered,” he added, stressing that “half of the stations can supply” more than half of the French, or even “80%” according to him.

The fact remains that teeth are grinding on the side of the smaller service stations. Part of the sector, however, complains of not having benefited from stock clearances at the same time as supermarkets or TotalEnergies. Francis Pousse, of the Mobilians network, which notably represents independent service stations, denounced on Sunday “unbearable” price differences.

The government's commitments "do not correspond to actions", he lamented. “I don’t understand why he says that,” Serge Papin reacted on Monday. “We developed a system, precisely with Francis Pousse”, of zero-interest loans, to help small independent stations to lower their prices, he recalled. The latter will be able to do so “perhaps not this [Monday] morning at 9 a.m., but in any case during the week,” assured the minister.

With “the long-distance driver bonus” of 100 euros and taking into account the “lowest price of the lowest distributor”, the price of a liter of diesel can be “1.75 euros”, he insisted. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu also welcomed on

The State will ensure that the “advantage” linked to the release of 10 million barrels of diesel from its strategic stocks is “fully passed on in the price paid by consumers”, affirmed Sébastien Lecornu.

Machine-translated from French