Could the announcement come at a worse time? While the surge in energy bills was one of the recurring subjects of the campaign for the European elections, the Energy Regulatory Commission announced on Monday June 10, the day after the election, that the average price of energy gas bill for millions of French people would increase by 11.7% in July compared to June. Enough to reinforce the concerns of households, even as the anticipated legislative elections of June 30 and July 7 are announced. Tuesday June 11, the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, committed, on BFM-TV and RMC, to reducing the electricity bill by 10% to 15% in February 2025.
In recent weeks, several candidates from both the left and the right have highlighted the importance of energy in the purchasing power difficulties of households, a subject placed at the top of the French people’s concerns. During the debates, the president of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, dangled price cuts, when Manon Aubry, the head of the list of La France insoumise, retorted that he was talking “constantly rising energy bills”but had not “not opposed to the European electricity market, responsible for the surge in prices”.
The unprecedented financial effort that many households have had to make in recent years has made paying gas or electricity bills a political issue. From the second half of 2021, energy prices began to rise with the post-Covid-19 global economic recovery, then the rise accelerated in spring 2022 in Europe, after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, leading to massive increases. If tariff shields partly cushioned the shock, their effectiveness was not complete, far from it. Their gross cost was estimated by the Court of Auditors at 72 billion euros for public finances since the fall of 2021.
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26% of households were cold
Nearly one in three households encountered difficulties paying certain energy bills in 2023, compared to 18% in 2020, according to the Energie-info barometer carried out in autumn 2023 by the energy mediator. The proportion rises to more than one in two households under 35 years old.
“The share of consumers for whom energy bills represent a significant part of the budget reaches 84% [en 2023]continues the survey carried out among a representative sample of 2002 households. This is an increase of 13 points compared to 2020.” The share of households having suffered from the cold amounts to 26% (+12 points compared to 2020).
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