Economy

The Eiffel Tower, closed for five days due to a strike, will reopen on Sunday following an agreement between the unions and the operating company of the Parisian monument, the latter announced on Saturday. “The management of the Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (Sete) and the trade union organizations have reached an agreement to end the strike providing that the parties will regularly review the economic model, the evolution of investments of work and revenue of the company through a body which will meet every 6 months”specifies Sete in a press release.

The reopening will not be effective until Sunday morning “in order to give the technical team time to ensure the elevators are properly restarted for safe reception”, underlined the two trade union organizations CGT and FO in a joint press release. La Sete added that “this body will allow the monitoring of the amendment to the Public Service Delegation contract, as proposed in January”with notably “the return to financial balance of the company from 2025”. Management and unions also agreed on “an ambitious investment of 380 million euros until 2031, particularly for the work and maintenance of the Tower’s heritage”according to the management press release.

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100,000 entries lost

The agreement further provides “the continuation of the 20th painting campaign and the start of the next one”a key point in the delicate question of maintaining the monument, inaugurated 135 years ago. “La Sete would like to renew its apologies to all visitors who have found its doors closed since February 19 and is delighted to be able to welcome the public once more”continues the management, assuring that visitors who were unable to visit the emblematic monument would be “automatically and fully reimbursed as soon as possible”. The five days of strike represented around 100,000 lost entries. “We will remain mobilized to defend the monument until a viable model is obtained”warned the CGT and FO.

If it had lasted beyond Sunday followingnoon, this strike would have been the longest in the recent history of the tower. In the fall of 1998, the monument remained closed for six and a half days. The ongoing conflict had already led to its closure on December 27, the hundredth anniversary of the disappearance of its architect Gustave Eiffel. The economic balance of the Eiffel Tower, which in 2023 returned to higher attendance than it was before Covid-19, with 6.3 million visitors, was weakened by some 130 million euros in shortfalls. win during the two years of health crisis (2020 and 2021).

In January 2024, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) recorded a monthly variation of 0.7%, with a twelve-month increase – with respect to the spliced ​​series of the index – of 3.8%.

Eleven of the thirteen divisions that make up the CPI basket contributed positive impacts on the monthly variation of the index, and two presented negative impacts.

Among the divisions with increases in prices, food and non-alcoholic beverages (1.0%) stood out with 0.215 percentage points (pp.) and housing and basic services (1.2%) with 0.205 percentage points (pp.).

The remaining divisions, which had a positive influence, jointly contributed 0.492pp.

Among the divisions that recorded monthly decreases in their prices, transportation stood out (-1.6%), with an incidence of -0.219pp. as reported by the INE.

In this way, the CPI for January was markedly above expectations (0.2% to 0.3% m/m), registering a monthly increase of 0.7% (3.8% y/y).

The magnitude of the increase in the month of January is due, on the one hand, to the new reference basket used, which gives more importance to the Food and Non-alcoholic Beverages and Housing and Basic Services divisions, while, on the other hand, On the other hand, the rise in the exchange rate would have influenced this month’s record, according to the analysis released by the Latin American Center for Economic and Social Policies of the Catholic University (Clapes UC).

The new basket was also used by the Minister of Finance, Mario Marcel, to explain the January CPI.

According to Marcel, following participating in the launch of the National Fund for Reconstruction in Viña del Mar, this record of 0.7% reported by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) “is the first CPI data that is generated with the new basket, which is based on the Family Budget Survey for the year 2022.”

He added that part of the rise can be explained by some reversal in the price fall that occurred the previous month (in December the monthly variation of the CPI was -0.5%).

This month the INE began measuring the CPI through a new basket and calculation methodology, based on 2023=100. Along with the publication of the first CPI data under the new measurement – January 2024 – the reference series for the year 2023 was made public and a linked series that covers from 2009 to the present, for which Minister Marcel mentioned that the result required additional explanation.

He indicated that, with the January figure, “the annual variation that appears in the spliced ​​index is 3.8%, therefore, inflation continues to decline compared to the 3.9% annual rate recorded the previous month.” He also detailed that the combined figure – which is used for all the legal effects that the CPI has, such as determining the price of the UF – is different from the inflation that arises from the new CPI basket.

“Closer to the goal”

“Along with delivering the January information, the INE also delivered a series with the new reference basket for the entire previous year. When this series is used and the variation is estimated over 12 months, the result is an annual CPI in January of 3.2%,” explained Marcel. Based on the reference series published by the INE, it is the one that the Central Bank has historically used for the purposes of economic analysis and understanding the evolution of inflation, he noted.

In summary, Marcel stated that “even though the variation of the month was above expectations, inflation in one year, measured by the new basket, is considerably lower than that which results only from the joined figures. In other words, there is a difference of more than half a point downwards, therefore, the data are telling us that, throughout the last year, inflationary pressures have been somewhat lower than those that the CPI had been measuring in its previous base and which, therefore, means that we are closer to reaching the inflation goal.”