Consumer prices in France rose by 4.0% in October 2023 on a year-on-year basis, compared to a +4.9% y-o-y increase in September, new data from Insee has shown.
The slowdown in inflation was largely driven by a reduction in energy price inflation (+5.2% compared to a +11.9% increase in September), while food prices (+7.8%) and manufactured products (+2.2%) also saw inflation ease.
The price of services accelerated, however, to +3.2% year-on-year, compared to +2.9% in September.
On a month-on-month basis, consumer prices increased by 0.1%, following on from a 0.5% decline in September.
Food prices
The reduction in food price inflation is likely to have a marked impact on French consumers, with food inflation now slowing for the seventh month in a row, the data showed.
In October 2023, the deceleration of food inflation was particularly noteworthy across various categories. This includes bread and cereals, which increased by 9.4% compared to 10.9% in September, meat at 6.8% compared to 8.3%, milk, cheese, and eggs at 11.2% compared to 13.5%, oils and fats at 5.8% compared to 7.8%, sugar, jam, honey, chocolate, and confectionery at 12.6% compared to 14.0%, alcoholic beverages at 6.5% compared to 7.3%, and non-alcoholic beverages at 9.9% compared to 11.1%.
Fresh products experienced a modest 1.1% price increase in October 2023 compared to the same month the previous year, a slowdown from the 4.5% increase in September. This decrease was primarily attributed to a reversal in vegetable prices, which were down by 5.8% compared to the corresponding month in 2022.
While the price of fresh fruit grew at a faster rate of 4.7% compared to the previous month’s 4.2%, the price of fresh fish also saw an uptick, rising by 1.5% compared to 0.1% in September.
Unemployment rate
Elsewhere, Insee data also showed that in the third quarter of the year, the unemployment rate in France increased by 0.2 points to 7.4%.
The actual number of unemployed rose by 64,000 over the quarter and reached 2.3 million people, it added.
