Control of service stations: “fuel benefits from price freedom”, recalls a union

In one week, the price of diesel increased by “15 to 20 cents on diesel”, warned the Minister of the Economy Roland Lescure, who announced “controls” to ensure “reasonable price increases” at the pump, in the context of the war in the Middle East.

The president of the professional union Mobilians Francis Pousse, which represents 5,800 traditional service stations (excluding supermarkets), declared this Friday on RMC that he was “not afraid of controls since most of ses members are entirely virtuous.” “Controlling margins is possible but I would still like to point out that fuel benefits from price freedom in the same way as baguettes,” he added.

As such, the president of Mobilians does not see “how the DGCCRF could sanction service stations that could potentially benefit, which I completely disapprove of,” he continued.

The rise in the price of a barrel

Francis Pousse also underlined that independents had to face “increased competition from fuel discounters”, recalling “that in France supermarkets represent 63% of market share”.

Over one week, the increase is “5 to 15 euro cents on SP95” and “15 to 20 cents on diesel”, Roland Lescure indicated on Thursday in an interview with Le Parisien, after having received the distributors at Bercy to “ensure” moderate price increases.

The day before, the Minister of the Economy had announced that he had asked the DGCCRF (Directorate General for Competition, Consumption and Fraud Repression, Editor’s note) to ensure that increases in fuel prices were “reasonable given the increase in the price of a barrel” of oil.

On Friday morning, oil prices were down slightly: around 6:30 a.m. world time, a barrel of Brent from the North Sea, the world market benchmark, lost 0.57% to $84.92, after having climbed 4.93% on Thursday. That of North American WTI fell by 0.85% to 80.34 dollars; it had soared by 8.51% on Thursday.