The surge in fuel prices concerns the whole world but is not the same in all countries. It is much lower in France than in Germany, for example. On the other side of France, Spanish prices have increased more than ours, but they remain lower.
After a real surge in early fall, fuel prices at the pump remain at a very high level. This increase is largely due to a strong recovery in demand after production slowdowns linked to the Covid-19 pandemic. It is therefore global. Daparto, a German company which groups together and compares the offers of several auto parts sales sites, has studied price inflation in five countries in the Euro zone, including France, based on the Commission’s weekly oil bulletins European. It emerges from this study that our country is not the one where the surge was the most important.
Germany weighed down by a new tax
Daparto compared the evolution of unleaded 95 and diesel prices in France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands, since March 2020. Between March and May 2020, ie during the first lockdowns, fuel prices had fallen markedly, probably due to falling demand. In France, gasoline had fallen to € 1.23 / l and diesel to € 1.16 / l at the beginning of May 2020. A slight increase had ensued, but it was from November 2020 that the ascent has been meteoric.
Between the implementation of the first health restrictions in March 2020 and this month of November 2021, the price of SP95 increased by 11.49% and that of diesel by 11.86% in our country. France was however less affected than the four other states studied. The increase was steepest in Germany, with + 26.88% for SP95 and + 31% for diesel. Note that a carbon tax was added to fuel prices across the Rhine on 1er last January, making them more expensive than in France, while German prices were more advantageous than ours until then.
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France is a good student, but not cheap
Over the same period, in the Netherlands, the price of SP95 increased by 19.81% and that of diesel by 22.21%. In Italy, these increases amount to 13.58% and 12.63% respectively. Finally, in Spain unleaded rose 16.45% and diesel 16.12%. Although affected by the smallest price increase in this selection, France is not the country where fuel is the cheapest, however. In November 2021, it is placed in fourth position ahead of Spain. According to carbu.com, the average price of SP95-E10 in France is currently € 1.65 / l and that of diesel is € 1.57 / l.
