«The last time, I had paid one euro eighty and something … It’s a state of thieves», storms this 82-year-old pensioner. «Everything has increased, bread, oil, gasoline. But people don’t say anything, they put up with it.»
Paris wakes up. The earliest motorists fill up at the Esso service station on boulevard de la Villette, on the way to work or school where they will drop off their children.
Pierre Orlowski, he will not completely fill the tank of his small car. «I put twenty euros in order not to break down, but I can’t fill up,» he confides bitterly.
On Wednesday, prices at the pump rose sharply again in France with a drastic reduction in the state rebate which had reached 30 cents per liter since September 1 and that of 20 cents granted by TotalEnergies in its stations. -service. Both have been reduced to 10 euro cents.
This Wednesday morning, unleaded 95-E10 is displayed at 1.87 euros in this station in the tenth arrondissement of the capital. And even if Mehdi Redissi «has to do with it», he is relieved to see that she has found her usual attendance.
«Yesterday, there was way too much line! I almost broke down so I gave up and came back this morning,» says this 27-year-old account manager, who travels the streets of Paris on a scooter every day.
In recent days, French service stations have indeed been besieged by motorists anxious to benefit from the last hours of higher discounts.
Many of them lacked at least one fuel and some were completely dry, particularly in Ile-de-France and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
– «You have to work hard» –
Discounts of 10 cents will continue to be applied until December 31. In 2023, the government is instead counting on targeted aid for motorists «who are struggling to make ends meet», said the Minister of Public Accounts, Gabriel Attal.
«And there, it’s going to be something else! The state should really continue to put its hands in the dough», launches Rachid Chelbi. On the gas pump, in front of the eyes of this Parisian taxi driver, the figures scroll and the total climbs at high speed.
This 50-year-old says he fills up about every four days. He remembers having paid 1.68 euros per liter of SP95-E10 the last time, or 20 cents less. But «we have no choice, we have to work hard!», he resigns himself.
On the other side of the boulevard, the TotalEnergies station displays diesel at 1.98 euros per liter and an SP95 at 1.79 euros, the one used by Chiara, a 34-year-old Italian doctor, to run her white city car.
«I’m more disappointed than anything else,» she squeaks when she discovers that the prices have increased by a few cents. «At the beginning, I filled up for 40 euros, now it’s 60, a while ago it was 80… It changes all the time!»
«I work between two hospitals in Ile-de-France that are difficult to access by public transport and, of course, they don’t pay me for gas,» she sighs. «It’s horrible. Anyway I want to move back to Italy, the quality of life here has become unbearable.»
In the French capital, or elsewhere in France, Chiara is not the only one to have been surprised at the pump on Wednesday.
In Lyon too, in a TotalEnergies station, Philippe Banse, 55, resolves to accept the inevitable. «I fill up because I need to fill my tank,» he said, without even having «calculated that there were no more discounts».