A new tax on the wrapping paper and cardboard boxes used for baguettes, pastries, and cakes has sparked anger among French bakers.
In a country where grabbing a daily baguette or croissant from a local boulangerie is a routine part of life, this new eco-friendly policy could change the way customers receive their daily bread.
The new recycling tax, implemented in recent weeks, charges bakeries 0.0075 cents for each customer’s packaging. The goal is to help cover recycling costs and reduce waste, aiming to protect the environment.
While the idea of contributing to waste reduction is not new, the new tax seeks to simplify an earlier, more complex administrative process where bakeries had to declare each item of packaging for their annual contributions to anti-waste efforts. Similar taxes have been introduced for other professions, including butchers and cheesemongers. However, French bakers argue that this new tax is another burden in an already challenging economy marked by rising energy costs and inflation on essential ingredients like flour and sugar. Since 2022, the French government has rolled out various aid packages to assist bakers with soaring electricity and gas bills.
For some bakers, the wrapping tax is simply “the straw that breaks the camel’s back.” “This is the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” said Dominique Anract, president of the National Confederation of French Boulangerie-Patisserie, in an interview with Le Figaro.
With the average boulangerie serving 300 customers a day, six days a week, the annual tax could add up to around 700€. Anract has suggested that bakers consider slightly raising their prices to offset the financial impact of the tax.
Bakers are also concerned about the potential effect on their customers, particularly in a country where independent boulangeries still make up 52% of bread sales. Every day, 12 million French people purchase a baguette, a cultural icon that was even recognized by UNESCO in 2022 as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
As a solution, some bakers have suggested a return to reusable cloth bags, known as sacs à pain, which were once widely used. Whether wrapped in paper or not, it seems the French are far from ready to give up their cherished baguette.
