Carole Ferry, edited by Solène Leroux with AFP 12:02 p.m., January 14, 2022

Three months before the presidential election, purchasing power is the main occupation of the French.

This is all the more relevant as their wallet is currently affected by inflation.

INSEE just unveiled its figures this morning for 2021: inflation remains at 2.8%.

Inflation remains at a high level.

Consumer prices rose 2.8% in December, the same increase as November, INSEE said on Friday, confirming its first estimate published in early January.

The December inflation figure should serve as the basis for calculating the rate of remuneration for the Livret A, the level of revaluation of which is to be announced on Friday by the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire.

The level of price increases in France is at its highest since 2008. The government has taken one of the measures to limit the effects of inflation for low-income households and has imposed a limit on the increase in electricity prices to 4% in 2022 for all individuals.

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Price increases concern everyone since the products whose price has increased the most are the essential products for everyday life.

In the lead energy, the price of gas, electricity and gasoline, but also food and certain manufactured products which are hit hard by shortages of raw materials.

Food prices, for example, rose by 1.4% in December over twelve months, with a sharp rebound for fresh products (+3.3%), including fresh vegetables (+3.5%) after a fall in November .

Sustained inflation?

But the big question dividing economists today is: “Will this last”?

"We did not expect an inflationary recovery at all and in other countries, especially in the United States, we are at much higher levels", confides the president of the circle of economists, Hippolyte d'Albis, for which this hypothesis should be considered.

"We can no longer rule out a scenario where we would have high inflation of around 7% or more, and perhaps even lasting," he says.

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 Help, inflation is going to hurt!

For the moment, INSEE forecasts inflation rather around 2.6% over the next six months.

The Banque de France, for its part, estimates that we are currently at the peak, and that prices should come back down by the end of the year.