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The measures are part of a wider review promised by President
Emmanuel Macron to appease farmers, an important constituency in
French politics, who have long complained of being hit by
squeezed margins and retail price wars.
In October Macron said the government would raise minimum prices
retailers can charge on food products only if each sector
proposed detailed organization plans by the end of the year.
Most of these plans arrived late last week, the official said.
The government will propose that threshold below which retailers
cannot sell food products will rise by some 10 percent while
prices on promotional offers could not be discounted by more
than 34 percent and no more than 25 percent of a product's
volume could be sold in a promotional offer, the official said,
in line with a proposal reported by daily Le Figaro.
The new rules, aimed at limiting sales at losses that pressure
suppliers down the chain, would be applied for a trial period of
two years.
Macron had delayed until year-end the proposal by retailers to
raise regulated minimum prices as he sought guarantees it would
meet his promise to boost farm income while minimizing retail
inflation.
The measures will be included in a new law, set to be approved
in the first half of next year, which will also tackle price
renegotiation in case of a wide swing in commodity prices and
create a reversed contract starting from farmers' production
costs to food processors and to retailers.
Company and industry representatives, unions, non-governmental
organizations and officials, have gathered at the so-called Food
Convention since the summer to discuss topics ranging from food
quality to farm income and export strategy.
(Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide; Editing by Dominique
Vidalon and David Evans
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