Energy prices well and truly on the up!

One thing that has puzzled me is a lack of any noise from the ‘Gilet jaunes’ about the rocketing price of fuel.

Apparentlythe farmers here are muck spreading in Gueret today💩

Well you are right Tim17 it is people living rurally or having jobs which must be reached by car who are suffering immediately from the petrol price rises.

Parisians are mostly going to be able to continue using public transport, lucky things!

But of course everyone’s taxes, town and city, will be used for any supporting remedies for the various consequences of this conflict… So everyone will pay in the end, directly or indirectly.

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Casino petrol stations offer to net your price to 1 euro per litre today 11th March and tomorrow 12th March. Customer service in store will hand out a voucher for store shopping if you buy fuel in the petrol station then bring your receipt into the store. Up to 80 euros voucher value according to the promo info.

Intermarche and Leclerc have been promoting reduced petrol deals too on odd days.

Source : auto-moto.com. I’d post the link but the site is heavily loaded with ads and particularly annoying videos so each supermarket’s own website is probably a better bet.

Substanially reduced price but only if 40% + of your total use is during that period and very little at other times when you pay more.

It wont be if everyone does as you suggest :wink:

We manage to use 57% of our total consumption during the night hours by using the delay start facilities on major appliances and having the water heater only functioning at night. With a little ingenuity and planning it can be done.
Even if everyone throughout the land used their major appliances at 4am, I doubt that it would come anywhere near surpassing the power used by commerce and industry during the day. We can, and in my view should, take whatever steps we can to assist EDF being able to assist other neighbouring countries at times of future peak need for electricity.

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I switched on my washing machine one day and came back to a flooded house. Engineer came, inlet valve had stuck open. He advised that washing machines should not be left working unattended!

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On the other hand, one can always purchase a machine that has built in overflow protection.

Concrètement si vous faites un plein de 50 litres et que vous payez 100 euros, la station Casino vous remettra d’obtenir un bon d’achat de 50 euros en magasin que vous pourrez utiliser si vous dépenser plus de 100 euros pour faire vos courses.

Une opération cependant de courte durée puisque seuls les achats de carburant faits ces vendredi 11 mars et samedi 12 mars pourront donner accès à cette ristourne.

Basically, if you fill up with 50 litres and you pay 100 euros, the Casino station will give you a voucher for 50 euros in the store that you can use if you spend more than 100 euros for shopping.

An operation however of short duration since only fuel purchases made on Friday March 11 and Saturday March 12 will be able to give access to this rebate.

(every little helps… )

StellaRegular

4h

A trip from UK down to Andorra… was always worthwhile… :slight_smile:

En route back to France the other day, we filled up as usual at La Jonquera and I was horrified to find the fuel only a couple of centimes less that than what I’d paid in France prior to heading down to Spain. Mind you, it was still good to have had a foretaste of Spring and a week of great seafood.

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My partner works full time in CDI contract here in France doing UK customer services for Nissan UK. The job is online and home based and has some benefits such as €150 of food vouchers and performance and attendance bonuses. It is keeping the wolf from the door as we trying to renovate (with escalating prices) our old wreck high in the Correze and also rent a house in which to live. Costs are spiralling and we are really struggling on only one salary. Her pay is SMIC. You may be surprised to know that the French minimum wage only rose by a few cents this year and it was ridiculously low to start with, just over €10 a hour, which is what about £8 an hour? If Macron and the French government really gave a shit about normal working people then why not increase the SMIC to say €15-20 an hour to keep pace with real living costs. Since 2008 and the global crash things have gone backwards for a huge number of ordinary people. The price rises of everything is eyewatering at the moment. It is extremely hard to live frugally in France, food especially has rocketed along with fuel. What are you supposed to do if you live in the sticks? (which is most of rural France). We came to France because we hated the political situation in the UK and couldn’t afford a house with any land there. We saved for years and now we are fearful that as we get older we will end up broke and forever struggling in this country. I know it’s the same virtually everywhere, but people have had enough of being dumped upon by the rich elite and wealthy ruling classes. Yes many people in other parts of the world have it much, much harder, but isn’t it about time we found a fairer and kinder way for us all to live?

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Of course, I’m talking about the good old days… long before we moved over… when the world and we were still young… and I can’t be the only one with such happy memories… we used to fill the tank… and fill the boot with goodies… :+1: :+1:

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I do, it’s called ‘The Wife’ :rofl::rofl::clipperton_island::beer::anchor:

I think 2008, and the bankers getting away with it and the losses due to their greed and foolhardiness being accepted by government to be loaded onto the taxpayer, was a real trigger for me and others, to realise what’s going on in terms of the concentration of wealth and power in countries where we had thought a better balance had been achieved.

The bankers, including in the City of London basically held the (at least Western) world financial system to ransom and said to governments “Bale us out on the losses we made on speculation and greed. We lost our bets. If these losses are not shared with everyone then the whole financial system will collapse because too many financial institutions will go under if they have.to recognise their losses”.

Governments and regulators duly obliged and we’ve never really recovered since. There was no later clawback from the bankers. No lien on their future profits nor on assets except in the case of an actual collapse. Where bankers win, they still get to keep all the money. Only the losses are shared. “Private equity” part of the industry in particular, and rich shareholders screamed for subsidies (paid by taxpayers) in Covid. Whilst they kept their assets.

Since the 2008 crisis the rich are still richer. Real asset prices are through the roof. They are about to go considerably higher. We can add the looming commodities shortages upcoming in much of the world food and metals particularly. Metals with their knock-on effects on industrial production, construction, cars, computers, phones etc. Food shortages leading to hunger and instability that spreads beyond borders.

I know @Geof_Cox has been largely right about this all along and we have ex-bankers here who may disagree but that’s what I am slowly becoming aware of.

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Hi Paul,

Was saddened and felt slightly guilty to read your post immediately after mine - two posts from rural SW France, yet worlds apart. But at least neither of us are still in the UK…

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If the French government really wanted to help it’s people then scrapping VAT on fuel/energy and tax on petrol and diesel would be a game changer in the short term. Why are they even taxing these things? Tax the rich properly and invest in green energy for all.

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The Connexion: ‘Fuel prices to drop in France from Monday, diesel down 35 euro cents’.

Or conversly,
This is Money: Shell boss Ben van Beurden pockets a £1.1m pay rise as profits soar.

I posted the French link to the 35ec drop 9 hours ago… the Connexion obviously read the same French News… :rofl: :+1:

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