Price of the metro ticket, the baguette… Few elected officials are still destabilized by these questions.
In 1974, after a moment of hesitation, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing had answered 90 cents, instead of 1.30 francs, when Françoise Giroud asked about the cost of the trip by public transport.
The voters had not blamed him, but his predecessors had learned the lesson.
A few months later, François Mitterrand mentioned with great concern the price of a liter of oil for the “
housewife
”.
In 1988, Mitterrand and Chirac outdid themselves with concern about the cost of food for dogs and cats.
Today, Bruno Le Maire makes a point of saying that he takes care of the family shopping himself.
A politician must follow the variations of labels in stores as a sign of closeness to his fellow citizens but above all because, beyond any reflection on purchasing power, prices say something very symbolic in the collective unconscious about the state of…
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