Despite the decline, inflation will remain “slightly higher” than before, warns Bruno Le Maire

“The inflation crisis, I confirm, is behind us,” Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said this Thursday on CNews/Europe 1, warning that the inflation rate will remain “slightly higher” than before the crisis. . It will remain at around 2%, in particular due to the cost of the energy transition, he said.

“For many of our compatriots this remains very difficult,” the minister added. “In 2024, inflation will be below 3%,” he continued, also acknowledging that prices will not return to pre-crisis levels.

“2% instead of about 1%”

“As we move activity because it is expensive to decarbonise our economy, it is likely that the level of structural inflation will be slightly higher than what it was before the Covid crisis,” the government number two explained. “What this means is that we have an inflation rate of about 1% or even close to zero, and that we will have an inflation rate that is more consistently around 2% rather than around 1%,” he explained.

Inflation in France continued to decline in November, falling to 3.5% for the year, down from 4% in October, according to the National Institute of Statistics. In its latest forecasts, published in mid-December, INSEE forecast single-year inflation of 2.6% in June next year, down from 3.7% at the end of 2023 and around 6% at the start of the year. After peaking at nearly 16% in the spring, food price inflation should clearly slow to 1.9%.

The Bank of France forecasts inflation will reach an annual average of 5.7% in 2023 and fall to 2.5% in 2024, measured here according to the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP), which allows comparisons across European countries.