Here is some good news in 2024. After two years marked by high inflation, due to the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, consumer prices on average over the year 2024 have slowed down very sharply, + 2% only, reported Wednesday January 15, INSEE.
In 2021, before the start of the Ukrainian crisis, consumer prices had increased by 1.6% on average over the year before exploding in 2022 with an annual average of +5.2%. In 2023, inflation was 4.9%, driven up in particular by energy and food prices.
Why such a decrease?
If this drop in inflation is so significant on an annual average, it is largely linked to the very clear slowdown in food prices which had reached + 11.8% in 2023, compared to + 1.4% in 2024. Energy prices also decreased, from +5.6% in 2023 to +2.3% in the year that just ended. The stability of manufactured products (0% after +3.5%) and the slight drop in prices of services (+2.7% after +3%) also weighed on the total balance. Conversely, tobacco prices are the only ones to have increased in 2024 with significant inflation: + 10.3% (compared to + 8% in 2023).
France is not an isolated case. On an annual average, the harmonized consumer price index (HICP), which allows comparisons between European countries, increased by 2.3% in 2024, after + 5.7% in 2023. This good news: in its latest economic note, INSEE forecasts that inflation will continue to fall in 2025, with an expected level of +1%, in June over twelve months.
Even if the annual average is encouraging, the National Institute of Statistics confirmed in its report that consumer prices increased by 1.3% over twelve months in December, as in November. From November to December consumer prices increased by 0.2%, after a decrease of 0.1% in November. For its part, underlying inflation, which excludes the most volatile prices from the calculation, also stood at +1.3% over one year, after +1.5% the previous month. Concerning the HICP, it increased by 0.2% in the month of December, after -0.1% in November. On annual average there is a slight acceleration: + 1.8%.
