"This is a postponement, it does not call into question at all the validity of this common-sense measure, which will be applied. It's just that we have to be pragmatic, that we adapt to the context, "said Sunday to AFP the cabinet of Olivia Grégoire, Minister Delegate for Trade, following information in the press.

"When you have inflation at 15% on the shelves, that the receipt is a benchmark for many French, it seemed important to us to keep this benchmark" the time to "pass the inflationary peak," it added.

Initially scheduled from 1 January 2023, the end of the systematic printing of receipts at the end of a commercial transaction - unless explicitly requested by the customer - had already been postponed to 1 April.

It stems from the "anti-waste and circular economy" law, voted in 2020, and aims to reduce waste production, while nearly 30 billion tickets are currently printed each year in France.

A new date will be announced "at the beginning of the week", via a decree in the Official Journal at the end of an arbitration of Matignon between the dates of August 1 and September 1.

Olivia Grégoire's ministry says it is "rather favorable to the first date", in August, "because it allows people to get used to and prepare for larger purchases at the start of the school year".

Minister Delegate for Trade Olivia Grégoire at the Elysee, March 15, 2023 © Ludovic MARIN / AFP / Archives

With the waltz of food inflation prices, especially in supermarkets, this measure taken in the name of ecology still causes misunderstanding on the shelves, consumers frequently consult their receipt to check the details of their shopping.

"Not convenient to look on the internet"

"The French are still more than half to say they want to ask for a ticket in paper format," said a few days ago Franck Charton, general delegate of Perifem, an association in which distribution players work on technical issues, including energy or environmental.

Jean-Claude Glissant, forty-year-old interviewed earlier in the week by AFP at the exit of the E.Leclerc hypermarket in Pantin in Seine-Saint-Denis, is among the consumers opposed to the end of the paper ticket. "It saves money, it's good for the planet, I know... But for my accounts, looking all the time on the internet, it's not practical, "he grumbles.

Lucia Freixeda, 62 and not yet retired, shows her own receipt: "There is a mistake there, you see? On the terminal inside the store, it was marked 1.99 euros, and here it is 2.99 euros, "she explains. Even when tickets are no longer automatically offered by shops, she will still "ask for them".

In Toulouse, in a central district, the idea of receiving his ticket electronically makes Ahmed Sessi, 74, smile, who believes he is "too old to understand how it works" and considers it important to "know how much he paid for an item so check if the price has increased".

In a supermarket in Septèmes-les-Vallons (Bouches-du-Rhône), in November 2022 © Christophe SIMON / AFP/Archives

But some consumers are also in favor of ending the printing of these tickets: Alice Cribier, a 31-year-old freelance translator interviewed in Toulouse, thinks that "it's very good, since it will reduce paper consumption, which is a good habit to take".

For Ouhadda Badreddine, also in Toulouse, "it will pollute less", this 21-year-old student indicating that he will monitor "maybe more (his) expenses if more shops offer the ticket on their application".

In the eyes of the association Perifem representing distribution, the end of the paper ticket will be "the beginning of a new era for customers", who will "quickly understand that dematerialization will bring them new services, for example by automatically classifying" expenses by type of fee, or even by automatically grouping the different discount vouchers.

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© 2023 AFP