Remember, it was in the midst of the yellow vests crisis.
Edouard Philippe, the Prime Minister at the time, promised to tackle the “blind spots of purchasing power” by targeting the auto parts market.
The term couldn't be better chosen.
In fact, today, changing a simple car mirror can quickly get out of hand on a tight budget.
Blame it on the manufacturers' monopoly on body parts.
The marketing of these so-called “visible” elements (hood, fenders, windshield, windows, rear-view mirrors, headlights, etc.), protected by intellectual property law, is in France, reserved for manufacturers.
This rule requires distributors, garage owners and bodybuilders to obtain supplies directly from Renault, Peugeot or Citroën.
“Mr. Prime Minister, French motorists expect respect for their word.
Perhaps you've seen the message get across.
It is signed by the Federation of Automotive Distribution (FEDA), which recently offered a press campaign to recall the promise.
Goal ?
End the monopoly of manufacturers.
The measure could allow the French to directly save 17.5% of expenses for vehicles, estimates the FEDA.
Distributors of spare parts like repairers would then be allowed to source cheaper parts abroad.
"England, Germany, Spain and Italy, among others, have liberalized their market, but not us," sighs Mathieu Séguran, the general delegate of FEDA.
Our small Gallic village of captive repairs is losing a lot of money to consumers ... Unfortunately, intense lobbying from manufacturers has so far prevented any development.
The latter shake up the cost of innovation, storage and transport to justify their monopoly and high prices.
They have won their case until today, but without convincing.
Already in 2012, the Competition Authority recommended a “gradual and controlled lifting of the monopoly on visible spare parts”.
Two missed opportunities
In fact, the government has not stood idly by since the promise of Edouard Philippe.
In 2019, the LREM majority amended the orientation law on mobility, known as LOM.
The opening to competition of the auto parts market was then scheduled for January 1, 2020. But the Constitutional Council decided otherwise, censoring the measure on the grounds that it was too far removed from the overall theme of the law.
Bis repeated in 2020 with the law of acceleration and simplification of public action, known as ASAP.
Article 136 did not pass the Elders' stage who deemed it non-compliant for the same reasons.
At the beginning of April, the deputy of Sarthe Damien Pichereau (LREM) submitted to the group a bill (PPL).
“There is an emergency, insists the young elected, ex-salesman in the automobile.
The price of these captive parts increased by 11% between 2017 and 2019, while insurance premiums took 12% from 2015 to 2019. We must restore purchasing power to 40 million French motorists.
"
The ace !
The risk of legislative congestion is real as the end of the five-year term is approaching at high speed. "There is a window in the Assembly in May-June", hopes Damien Pichereau, who crosses his fingers that the Senate, behind, play the game too.
"We are on a simple bill, all parliamentarians can agree on its objectives," adds the elected.
Insurance premiums could drop
The text provides for the liberalization of spare parts for all equipment manufacturers from January 1, 2022. At the Ministry of the Economy, some fear that the market will fall into the hands of foreign manufacturers, but the law would first do the business of French subcontractors, Valeo, Faurecia and Plastic Omnium, among others.
French households, on the whole, can count on an annual saving of 415 million euros according to the association UFC-Que Choisir.
With cascading effects on insurance premiums.
Because insurers are also pushing, the French Insurance Federation in the lead.
"We are completely willing to seek to reduce the cost of repairs and therefore contributions", slips a representative of MAIF.
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Damien Pichereau, finally, welcomes the future impact of the text for the most modest.
Older vehicles will be more easily repaired in the event of a disaster, whereas they are often classified as “economically irreparable”, putting their owners in precarious situations.
The yellow vests crisis, at the start of the five-year term, was born from the rise in the cost of fuel.
Returning purchasing power to motorists, at the end of the financial year, "would be a good way to emphasize that the message has been swept away by the news, but that it is still present in the minds of elected officials", loose a LREM deputy, heavyweight of the Finance Committee.
