Food stamps for food purchases: Parliament finally approved extension until the end of 2024

Parliament rushed through a final Senate vote on Monday to extend until the end of 2024 the exemption that allows restaurant vouchers to be used for all food purchases. The text, presented by the government as a measure to combat still high inflation, was adopted by senators in the evening by a vote of 322 to 2.

Due to time constraints, as the system was due to expire at the end of 2023 unless any legislative changes were made, High Assembly parliamentarians kept the same draft version as the one adopted by the National Assembly at the end of November. This will allow the system to come into effect as quickly as possible, which Trade Minister Olivia Gregoire said is “necessary in the very short term.”

The system, introduced in 2022 and due to expire on December 31, 2023, allows approximately 5.4 million employees in France to use their “restaurant vouchers” to purchase non-consumable products (flour, pasta, rice, meat) on the shelves etc.). .), although they are usually intended for direct consumption products and not just for restaurants.

Reservations expressed by restaurateurs

In the Senate, several environmentalist and centrist senators tried in vain to limit the extension to six months, until June 30, 2024. The government, which favors a temporary extension of the system, reiterated late Monday that it would be open to long-term reform of food stamps, particularly to dematerialize them. “We need to modernize it, dust it off,” Olivia Gregoire said. However, pure and simple sustainability “requires more in-depth work and consultation,” she added.

Republicans speaker Marie-Deau Aeschliman went in a similar direction, asking for a broad vote without changes “immediately and under emergency conditions.” However, she emphasized the “reservations” expressed by restaurateurs, about which the Senate would be “vigilant.”

“We recognize the risk of destabilizing the food service sector, which has already been hit hard by successive crises. Likewise, we do not ignore the need to find a long-term solution to the problem of the purchasing power of the French, because the check policy is like a bandage on a wooden leg,” she continued.