Fuels: E.Leclerc will sell "at cost price every day" from Friday

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER / AFP 16:15 pm, September 26, 2023

The E.Leclerc brand announced Tuesday that it would offer from Friday in 750 service stations "gasoline at cost price every day", a few hours before a meeting in Matignon with fuel distributors to convince them to "take their share". Emmanuel Macron on Sunday recorded the abandonment of the idea of selling at a loss, rejected by all distributors and instructed his Prime Minister to bring together representatives of the sector.

From 29 September, the 750 petrol stations in @Leclerc hypermarkets will sell petrol daily "at cost price". It clearly means no profit and every day, not just on weekends as in our previous operations. pic.twitter.com/nwTZYRyp1N

— Michel-Edouard Leclerc (@Leclerc_MEL) September 26, 2023

Elisabeth Borne will welcome Tuesday at 17:30 pm distributors, refiners, and professional federations to "ensure the moderation of margins" and "ask to multiply the operations price cost, without excluding to legislate if necessary". "Everyone must do their part," she insisted.

"An act of solidarity"

On Twitter, the president of the strategic committee of the distribution group E.Leclerc Michel-Edouard Leclerc announced at midday that "from September 29, the 750 service stations of Leclerc hypermarkets would sell gasoline daily at cost price. This clearly means no profit and every day, not just on weekends as in our previous operations," he said. "This is a positive response to the President's call to each actor in the sector to offer discounts or lower prices," he wrote, also evoking "an act of solidarity with all customers frightened by the increases and whose purchasing power is very impacted".

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Michel-Edouard Leclerc specifies that "this Leclerc initiative, built to last, should be reassessed or adapted to take into account the supply conditions and the expected involvement of oil companies". Earlier in the morning, the boss of Système U Dominique Schelcher had confirmed on BFMTV-RMC that he would proceed by "operations": "This can not be the permanent cost price," he said about his sign, evoking "low margins, 2 cents on average per liter".