"Reduflation," the procedure for some industries to reduce the amount they influence packaging without lowering the price, will be banned in France from November, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne announced.
"We're going to ban it. From November, all products subject to quantity changes will have to indicate it on the labels so as not to deceive the consumer anymore, "said Borne in an interview published this Sunday by the newspaper Le Parisien.
It is an increasingly widespread practice in France, as consumer organizations have denounced in recent weeks after research visits to supermarkets.
They add that in a good number of cases, the packaged volume goes down, and the price not only does not go down but even increases. A phenomenon that has occurred on virtually all supermarket shelves, such as ice cream, drinks and all kinds of food.
In one specific case, the combination of volume reduction and price increase on a bag of dog food resulted in a price increase per kilogram of 113%.
The Carrefour distribution chain, the most important in France, began last week to mark on its own the products that were there, in an attempt to show that the responsibility lies with the manufacturer.
Carrefour's labels say: "This product has reduced its content and increased its price."
The organization "60 million consumers" criticized, however, that some products of the company have also reduced their volume without lowering the price.
Sell products at a loss
The prime minister also advanced that fuel distributors will be able to sell products at a loss - breaking a ban dating back to 1963 - to try to stop the inflationary spiral of fuels.
That authorization will be extended "for a period limited to a few months," said Borne, who foresees "tangible results" for consumers without the government having to subsidize fuels as it did last year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
This year, the price of fuels has risen as a result of the increase in the price of oil as a result of the production cuts of some large producing countries of OPEC and its allies (OPEC+), led by Saudi Arabia.