Maud Descamps 07h55, April 08, 2022
The freezing of gas prices did not prevent the amounts of French bills from exploding.
For some, the bills have even been multiplied by five.
How can this price spike be explained?
How to circumvent it or deal with it?
Explanations with Europe 1.
Was freezing the price of gas enough to preserve the purchasing power of the French?
Some have seen their bills explode in recent months when they received the bill from their energy supplier.
Invoices have even multiplied… by five.
How to explain this phenomenon ?
There are several scenarios.
First of all, there are customers who are at regulated prices.
For gas, prices have indeed been frozen at their level of October 1, 2021 until the end of the year.
Electricity prices increased by 4% on February 1 and there will be no further increases this year.
>> READ ALSO
- Price increase: four figures to understand everything
Then there are customers who have a contract indexed to market prices: this is where bills explode, since gas prices have increased by 70% and 35% for electricity.
Changing supplier remains possible
Quentin saw his energy bill double in one month: "I went from 230 euros to 560 euros all of a sudden, without warning."
And then there are the customers who had a contract indexed to the regulated tariffs but whose supplier changed the terms.
The modification is legal if the supplier warns one month before.
But very often it is a simple email that is sent.
"Some of these customers did not receive it because the email got lost in spam", regrets Frédérique Feriau of the Energy Mediator.
"Today, they realize that the prices are no longer the same."
>> Find Europe Matin in replay and podcast here
The associations call on consumers to be extremely vigilant and point out that they can change supplier free of charge at any time.