A squeeze on French aspirations
LES ULIS, France: Anne-Laure Renard and Guy Talpot, a French couple planning radical lifestyle changes to reduce their cost of living, are in many ways a typical French family.
They live in a three-bedroom apartment in a small town south of Paris, and their combined pay of \40,000 a year, or about $62,500, places them right in the middle of Frances income distribution.
Over the past year, they have become typical in another way: consumer prices rose four times faster than their salaries, climbing 3.2 percent in the 12 months to March, according to the French national statistics office, Insee. Their bank account is pushing up against their \600 overdraft limit at the end of every month, leading them into an anxiety-filled downward spiral of ever-greater resourcefulness and sacrifice.
“In France, when you cant afford a baguette anymore, you know youre in trouble,” Renard quipped. “The French Revolution started with bread riots.”
While the unease about declining living standards is not unique to France, two factors make it urgent. First, the 35-hour workweek has kept average annual pay increases below 1 percent for nearly a decade, said Robert Rochefort, the director general of Credoc, an institute based in Paris that researches living standards and consumption patterns. Second, French hypermarkets - large, mall-like supermarkets that dominate vast areas with little competition - can keep prices as much as 5 percent higher than in neighboring Germany, he said.
The surge in French consumer prices over the past year was led by a 20 percent jump in energy prices and a 5.6 percent rise in the cost of food.
For Renard, 30, and Talpot, 36, these numbers are the calculus of a stark reality. As a primary school teacher, Renard earns \22,000 a year. This year, she is getting a raise of 0.8 percent. Her companion, a mailman who makes \18,000, got an annual bonus last year of \89, the equivalent of \7.42 a month before tax. Talpot, who starts each day of his 35-hour workweek at 6:30 a.m. and finishes at 1:45 p.m., has been asking for overtime. Now he is also considering taking on a second job in the afternoons.
They used to do all their shopping at Carrefour, the most emblematic of the hypermarket chains. But when their credit card bill in January showed that they had spent more than \1,500 on food the previous month, they realized that they could no longer afford regular supermarket brands. Since then, they only buy baby milk and diapers at Carrefour and everything else at an outlet store called Leader Price.
For a long time, Renard said, she believed that previous generations had paved the way for her to make it in France. Her great-grandmother was illiterate, her grandmother a factory worker; her mother, who started out as a secretary, now works as an office manager and owns her own house.
Renard studied history, and when she decided to become a teacher, she was confident that it would give her an even more comfortable lifestyle and her children all the opportunities they wanted.
Instead, she still finds herself relying on her parents financially and fretting about her sons future. Even though Vincent is not yet walking and Damien, at 3 years, not yet in school, Renard is setting aside \30 a month for each of them in a savings account.
“That is perhaps the most depressing thing,” said Renard. “I already know that I will end up poorer than my parents. What does that mean for my children?”
Renard and Talpot feel a sense of injustice when they acknowledge that restaurant and cinema visits have become a luxury of the past. “The middle classes are getting poor and at the same time bosses are paid millions,” Renard said.
“We have economized as much as we can, there is nothing else to squeeze,” Talpot added.
Almost nothing: The two will get married in a small wedding at the home of Renards mother in June, a decision primarily intended to cut their annual tax bill from about \1,500 to almost zero.
