The government-initiated fuel discount will come into effect on April 1. It will finally be 18 cents per litre. Not all service stations will apply it on this date but sometimes wait up to… three weeks.
Prices at the pump have once again exceeded €2 per liter in recent days at many service stations. Suffice to say that the fuel discount promised by the government is eagerly awaited by motorists.
The discount will not be 15 cents as initially announced, but 18 cents per litre. Concretely, service stations will continue to display their usual prices on the totems where the prices are listed. The fuel discount will apply when paying at the automatic pumps or at the cash desk. “The idea is that you can see, when you have finished your fill, on your ticket, how much it should have cost you and how much you are actually going to pay, so that you can see this effort”, explained the Minister for the Ecological Transition. Barbara Pompili, on RTL, Monday, March 14. The fuel discount will be applied for four months until the end of July 2022.
Up to 3 weeks of waiting
From Friday 1 April, all motorists will be able to benefit from the fuel discount. All of them, but maybe not right away. It will sometimes be necessary to wait… three weeks! Stations will first have to empty their tanks to restock with cheaper fuel. To understand the mechanism, you should know that the discount of 18 cents will be applied by the suppliers and not directly by the service stations. This is why the stations will have to sell off their stocks before being able to supply themselves at a better price.
A service station that sells large volumes of fuel – and orders it regularly – will be able to quickly apply the fuel discount. A station in a rural area, where the flows are lower”, will have to wait a bit. “It can take between two days and, in extreme cases, three weeks”, explains the Figaro Frdéric Plan, General Delegate of the French Federation of Combustibles, Fuels and Heating (FF3C). In order not to disadvantage small stations, and allow them to display more competitive prices from April 1, the State will offer them a lump sum advance of €3,000 to be reimbursed by mid-September.
A bill of 2 billion euros
Some motorists wonder why the state waited until April 1 to implement its fuel discount. The explanation is very simple: a decree had to be adopted and the discussions between the State, the oil companies, the suppliers and the distributors took a little time. The cost of the fuel discount for the State was calculated at “just over 2 billion euros”, said Jean Castex.
Will oil companies and distributors continue their promotions?
TotalEnergies will generalize to all its stations, including on the motorway, its discount of 10 cents per liter from April 1. It will be cumulative with the government fuel discount. It has already been applied in the group’s rural stations since February.
Giant will probably keep a liter of fuel at €1 on Friday and next Saturday. The operation takes the form of a voucher corresponding to the difference with the price paid at the pump. It is valid for a maximum of 50 liters and from 80 € of purchases in store.
Auchan will renew on April 1 and 2 the commercial operation launched on Friday. For the purchase of 30 liters of fuel, you receive a voucher of 6 euros usable from 30 € of races.
Carrefour offers until March 31 a reduction of €0.15 per liter of fuel. It is credited to the loyalty card and can be deducted at checkout.
According to the magazine Auto More, Leclerc and Intermarché will probably multiply “fuels at cost price”. Super U evokes an additional discount of 1 to 2 cents, again according to the magazine.