Officially inflation has reached 18.7% but "the bread I used to buy for one pound is now for three," Rehab, 34, told AFP.

"My husband earns 6,000 pounds per month" (230 euros), "before we lasted 30 days with that, today we go into the red after ten", she continues.

With the majority of goods imported and an 8% jump in interest rates, everything has melted away: bread patties, falafels, bottles of oil, packets of legumes and even baskets at subsidized prices of the 70 million Egyptians considered "poor" and therefore holders of a ration card.

A man walks past a chicken on sale in a store in Cairo, March 17, 2022. © Khaled DESOUKI / AFP

At the supermarket, signs warn: "maximum three bags of rice", "no more than two bottles of milk" or "one bottle of oil".

In the newspapers, the National Food Council praised "chicken feet, beneficial for the body and the wallet".

Meat, "no longer an option"

Because meat - frozen and imported, half the price of fresh meat - is "no longer an option: it has gone from 85 to 150 pounds per kilo", comments Rida, 55, who also refuses to give his name.

Market in Ataba Square, in the heart of the Egyptian capital, Cairo, October 24, 2022 © Khaled DESOUKI / AFP/Archives

This matriarch is struggling to feed her family of 13: "I am a civil servant and I do cleaning in a hospital, but even with two salaries there are plenty of things that I can no longer buy", she explains to the AFP.

If prices are soaring, it is also because importers are struggling to release dollars: currently, 7 billion dollars of products are blocked in ports, according to the authorities.

And misinformation thrives: Chinese brands Realme and Oppo and even McDonald's are regularly given away on social media.

Because, scalded by the haemorrhage of the beginning of the war in Ukraine, when investors took out billions of dollars, several banks are now limiting withdrawals in dollars abroad and have tripled the costs of using the bank card while that at money changers, greenbacks cannot be found.

Customers shop in a small public market in a town on the Sinai Peninsula, March 20, 2022. © Khaled DESOUKI / AFP

Even the very pro-regime Amr Adib got angry in his talk show: "at least let the Egyptians on vacation withdraw money for their taxi back!".

But Cairo is taken by the throat: it has only 33.5 billion dollars in reserve against 41 in February - including 28 in the form of deposits from the allies of the Gulf - and its external debt has more than tripled in 10 years at 150 billion euros.

"Don't Get Involved"

Egypt has devalued its currency by 57% but remains one of the five countries most at risk of not repaying its external debt according to Moody's.

And the three billion dollars of the new IMF loan weigh little: the debt service alone for 2022-2023 amounts to 42 billion.

The Minister of Transport has proposed a solution: make tourists pay for the train in dollars.

The construction site of the "Iconic Tower", in the "new capital" of Egypt east of Cairo, August 3, 2021 © Khaled DESOUKI / AFP/Archives

"I need dollars to pay for imported trains. It suits tourists and me too," Kamel al-Wazir explained recently.

But to release more money, the State wants to privatize all over the place.

So much so that public opinion is worried that Egypt will lose its sovereignty over its jewel: the Suez Canal.

He is "not for sale" hammered the regime, but President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, he would like to dip into his income - to create a fund that he will manage himself.

"Money, I know how to manage it, don't get involved," he said recently.

For Stephan Roll, of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Egypt is going into debt to "consolidate (its) authoritarian regime".

"The army, on which Mr. Sissi relies, is the first beneficiary: external debt protects his income and his property and finances mega-projects which bring him big" since most of the major works are entrusted to military engineers , he adds.

Far from new towns and gleaming electric trains, Rehab just wanted to buy her daughter a coat for the winter.

"But at 1,000 pounds, I had to give up," she says, her eyes misty.

© 2023 AFP