In order to reduce the impact of inflation on households, French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Sunday that the government would ask the petroleum business to sell at cost price and would provide 100 euros ($106.52) in aid to the poorest workers who drive to work.

“The Prime Minister will bring together all the players in the sector this week and we will ask them to sell at cost price, that is to say that no one makes a margin,” Macron said in an interview with France’s TF1 and France 2 television stations.

“There is something we can work on, is to avoid that there are abusive margins done on refining,” he said.

Initial plans by Macron’s administration to encourage shops to sell petrol below cost by temporarily waiving a ban on doing so were roundly rejected by the sector as being costly.

Regarding food prices, Macron said that the government sought to reach a “agreement to moderate margins” and accused big businesses of keeping their prices high despite a drop in inflation.

“Price freezing doesn’t work,” he said. We must “put everyone around the table, and find an agreement on the margins”, he said, adding that a proposal would be put forward next week.

According to Michel-Edouard Leclerc, CEO of the massive hypermarket chain E.Leclerc, 20% to 25% of some merchants’ sales are made up of fuel, making it “inconceivable” for the remaining accounts to turn a profit.

(Adapted from Bloomberg.com)

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