Diving in a resourceful France
Living cheap: instructions for use
Crisis in purchasing power, rising prices, surge in the barrel of oil ... More and more French people are forced to consume differently. To travel, to stay, to furnish or to eat. Low-cost living is no longer just a fashion, but a new economic model. With its good plans and its traps
Sign of the times? When, a few weeks ago, Jean-Pierre Coffe decided to devote his Saturday show on France-Inter, "Ca bouffe pas, ça mange mange," to cook meals for less than 5 euros, his audience was exploded. He who spends his life surveying the markets says that "since the war" he has never seen such a situation. Chic little grannies who buy asparagus by the unit on the capital's posh markets. Gentlemen in ties rummaging through garbage cans. Traders who grumble that "the wallet is closed". From the depths of his library, the eruptive apostle of a grandmother's and seasonal meals brought out the cookbooks published at the time of the crisis of 1929! Today he cooks recipes - not always alluring, let's face it! - made of fish heads (“200 grams per head for 1 euro, who says better?”), radish haulm soup or lamb tongue stew. "Now," he says, "there is no longer any question of buying haphazardly from the Caddy!" When the purchasing power is in capilotade, when the prices of the basic food products go crazy and that at the pump the motorists have the impression to fill up with champagne, it is a whole way of consuming which changes, from the resourceful to the stupid.
"Low-cost, a lever of purchasing power"? In any case, this is the title of the report given by Charles Beigbeder, president of Poweo, to Luc Chatel, the secretary of state for consumption and tourism. Who simply recommends to generalize the low-cost economic model to all sectors to allow the French to save money ... After the invasion of easyJet and other Ryanair which revolutionized the air, here is Renault with its Logan, copied now by all its competitors (see p. 16), Ikea with its Do it yourself furniture, or even the kings of hard discount, the German Lidl and Aldi (see box p. 21), which, in a gloomy context, are the the only brands to see their turnover increase (from + 5% to + 10% at the start of the year). Auchan, Carrefour and company copy them and swear by their discount departments. Even hairdressers have gotten started, like Tchip Coiffure, which offers shampoo-free packages at unbeatable prices. “In fact, all companies tend to be low-cost, since they seek to reduce their costs. One way to do this is to make the consumer work, this free and available labor ”, remarks Marie-Anne Dujarier, labor sociologist (1).
For Robert Rochefort (2), director of the Crédoc (Research Center for the Study and Observation of Living Conditions), the taboo of low-cost jumped about ten years ago. “Little by little, the consumer began to behave like a business. And to do cost-killing, cost reduction. ” Even the wealthy are no longer ashamed to chase the bargain. “Before, at home, we had rather the poor. Now, I see customers who park their Audi in front of the store, ”laughs this Lidl store manager. “The French arbitrate. They fill their Caddies at their hard discount to be able to buy a flat screen ... ”, says Olivier Géradon de Vera, director at the Iri-Secodip marketing institute. Arbitration? This is the watchword of the new consumer.
Another way to preserve its purchasing power: the Net. E-commerce thus jumped 35% last year. On the lookout for good deals, online shoppers spend hours on price comparators (Kelkoo.com), on countless consumer rating sites (Ciao.com) ... Or even transform themselves into sellers to round out their ends of months on eBay or PriceMinister. 15 French people pocket more than 000 euros per month thanks to these sites. "Our slogan," Become stingy, "says Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet, CEO of PriceMnister, has never been more topical. The French are completely uninhibited: our best month of the year is January, when people sell their Christmas gifts! ” Looking to get rid of the horse manure that stains your barn for free? A “brand new” walker (1 euros), a dwarf biquette (000 euros), a painting (100 euro) that immortalizes James Dean in cross stitch? Do you sell “homemade” cakes or chicken eggs for 55 euros per dozen? Leboncoin.fr, a site for transactions between individuals created in 1, operates like a garage sale nationwide. We sell cars and houses there, but also, one day, "a five leaf clover", says its founder Olivier Aizac. "And even an abandoned butcher's shop, the reopening of which has revived a small village in the English Channel!" From 4 to 2006 million goods are offered on the site, 2 people - more and more numerous in regions where purchasing power is low, such as the North - connect to it every day. Recently, barter has developed there.
“Everyone has a hard time. So, since the government is doing nothing for us, we have to do well. We do recovery. For children's clothes, furniture, everything. And around me I have more and more friends who grow their vegetable garden, ”says Grégory Gendre, 30. This young father of two children, soon to be three, who lives on the island of Oléron, formerly of Greenpeace, is an environmental activist. “Being green is also very good for purchasing power. Me, for example, I go to the market by bike rather than taking the car to go to the hyper. ” In Toulon, Yohann has no choice: for his work, he has to use the car. So he started to run on oil (see p. 16). "It's illegal, but everyone has such a hard time making ends meet. I don't know anyone who doesn't flirt with the rules. There are those who work a little black. Those who fake their EDF meter Those who squat the Internet subscription of their neighbors by sharing the same IP address Those who download music or films ... »Internet, vein is doing? Since she is on maternity leave, Yohann's wife has spent her days collecting free samples and reduction coupons: "There is something to go crazy about!"
A frenzy that has benefited Jérôme Savatte well: in his small studio in the Belleville district of Paris, this 33-year-old young man drives the Pasuneuro.com, Concours- free.com, Lesmalins.com, Reduc-privileges sites all by himself .com and the blog Generation-debrouille.com, of which he is the proud founder. They provide him with advertising income of 1 euros per month. This former employee in the restaurant industry has been passionate about “free, cheap” since at 500 he won a watch for the first time thanks to a competition. When he grew up, he went around the world for free, won a scooter, a self-massage chair and hundreds of gifts, which he sold or distributed to his friends. It shares with its 14 subscribers all its martingales to collect coupons, samples and free products.
The “zero euro attitude” is fast becoming a fashion, even an activist posture. Jacques Seidmann publishes the third edition of his free Paris guide (3). Sales - 14 copies - continue to climb. His 000 tips for the clever want to be "a manifesto against gloom". Even when purchasing power is in free fall, "you can keep the banana," claims this hopeless optimist. We are not very far, at home, from deconsumption. We are playing on the crisis, having fun. ”
The vein has now spread to television. And Julien Courbet, who presents in prime time "the Kings of the D system" since 2007 on TF1, was not mistaken. 6,5 million viewers are passionate about the "tricks" that he makes them discover in a strange mixture of genres. A cut cucumber rubbed under the arms? It is, it seems, a very economical, and even ecological, deodorant! Like banana peel to replace shoe polish or flour as a shampoo ... More doubtful, the bargain department, where we advise you with perfect cynicism to rush you to the auctions of goods seized for you offer a TV or even a pavilion, at obviously reduced prices, under the disgusted eye of their former owners.
Former President of Emmaüs-France, now High Commissioner for Solidarity Active Against Poverty with the Fillon government, Martin Hirsch has a little trouble taking an interest in the “fun” side of the D system, or swooning before the chic of cheap. What he sees is that the constrained share of spending in the household budget has gone from 13% in the 1960s to 30% today. That the use of consumer credit - once used for a one-time purchase - has become a structural means of making ends meet. “The expenses which for some are not even noticeable (buying a piece of clothing, having a dinner in a restaurant) become for others a factor of imbalance. When some, who would not have considered it ten years ago, can afford - low-cost, of course - a trip to Phuket, others cannot even pay for a return trip by train Paris-Rennes . Consumers are divided into two increasingly tight classes: those who can choose their spending and those who have no choice. ” In hard discount stores, carefully counting their coupons while pushing their carts less and less full, consumers have just seen prices go up. Low-cost? It is their life, now, that is low-cost.
Other articles to read here: http://hebdo.nouvelobs.com/hebdo/parution/p2275/
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