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PARIS (dpa-AFX) – France’s Economics Minister Bruno Le Maire has called for price reductions on numerous foods in the coming month. Corporations in the food industry have more than made up for their losses of the past two years, Le Maire said on Friday on BFMTV. Addressing the companies, he said: “You can keep part of the margin for yourself (…) but there is part of the margin that you have to give to the consumers.” The minister threatened: “If you don’t do it, we’ll collect it through taxes.”
Le Maire said several hundred products should become cheaper – such as pasta, sunflower oil and poultry.
According to preliminary data from the statistics agency Insee, consumer prices in France rose by 5.1 percent in May. Food prices rose by 14.1 percent./rbo/DP/ngu