Head of the French luxury LVMH empire, Bernard Arnault said he would donate €10 million to Les Restos du Coeur, a charity that provides meals and groceries for those in need. The organisation had earlier warned it may have to turn away some 150,000 people this winter as it struggles to meet growing demand amid a cost-of-living crisis.
The multi-billionaire owner of the LVMH group and his family say they are responding to the association's appeal with an "emergency contribution".
Bernard Arnault's eldest son Antoine will visit the Les Restos du Coeur premises on Tuesday with the Minister of Solidarity, Aurore Bergé.
"Through this solidarity donation, the Arnault family wishes to actively contribute to helping a magnificent association of general interest which works for the most vulnerable," a press release said.
The donation comes with no strings attached, a spokesperson for the group told Franceinfo.
Rampant inflation
Rampant inflation has pushed more and more people into financial hardship while at the same time driving up the charity's operating costs, the president of Restos du Coeur, Patrice Douret, told TF1 television on Sunday.
"Very clearly, we cannot go on like this. We have to put it concretely: if we continue at this pace and nothing is done, even Restos du Coeur could be forced to close its centres within three years," Douret warned.
Nine months into 2023, he said, the charity has already served more than 170 million free meals – 35 percent more than in the whole of 2022, when it distributed around 140 million.
While many of its supplies are donated, the organisation buys more than a third of the food it hands out, as well as footing the bills for warehouses to store it in and vehicles to transport it.
These rising costs, together with growing numbers of people in need, has left Restos du Coeur facing "very difficult measures", Douret said: reducing the amount of food it distributes to the worst-off people, and turning others away altogether.
The charity, which has already assisted 1.3 million people so far this year, estimates that it will have to say no to as many as 150,000 when winter comes around.
Other charities struggling
Restos du Coeur is one of the biggest charities of its kind in France, providing some 35 percent of all food aid.
It's not the only one struggling under the pressures of the cost-of-living crisis.
"We're not doing well, not at all," Jean Stellittano, national secretary of Secours Populaire, another charity that provides essentials for people in need, told RFI.
He says the charity, along with several others, have been warning the French government for almost a year now that the situation is getting unmanageable.
Its volunteers have seen not just more people but different sections of society turning to them for help, Stellittano says – including people in work who find their salaries are no longer enough to keep the fridge stocked by the end of the month.
With its own bills rising too, the organisation is being forced to reduce the amount of food it distributes.
"Instead of handing out six cartons of milk, we'll give four. And soon, perhaps three," says Stellittano.
Food 11 percent more expensive
Between 2 million and 4 million people in France are thought to depend on some form of food aid, a number that has climbed with each crisis of the past 15 years – first the 2008 banking collapse, then Covid-19, now inflation.
Already at an all-time high by August 2022, prices for household food have soared by a further 11 percent in the past 12 months, according to French statistics office Insee.
Meanwhile inflation on consumer goods across the board stands at 4.8 percent year on year.
"Often, when households find themselves on a very tight budget, food is one of – if not the – main variables for adjustment, and so that's where families are going to try and make savings," Benjamin Seze, journalist and author of a book on food precarity, told RFI.
The French government has sought to rein in prices through anti-inflation pacts with supermarkets, under which retailers agreed to cap increases on essential goods.
Following the warning sounded by Restos du Coeur, France's minister for solidarity, Aurore Bergé, told TF1 that the government would release €15 million in the coming days to help the charity meet its costs – though according to Douret, some €10 million of that sum was already pledged under existing spending plans.
The minister also announced that €6 million would go to charities providing baby food, formula, nappies and other essentials for infants.
Meanwhile French supermarket chains including Carrefour, Intermarché and Netto announced they would give products to Restos du Coeur as well as collecting food donated by customers.
'All the warning lights are on'
The charity, which is funded by donations as well as money from the French state and European Union, calculates it needs an extra €35 million on top of its current annual budget of €200 million to avoid going into the red this year.
It shouldn't be up to members of the public – themselves feeling the pressure of inflation – to keep food banks stocked, says Stellittano of Secours Populaire.
"It's the state's job to feed the people of France," he told RFI, calling on the government to launch a comprehensive anti-poverty plan.
Secours Populaire, together with Restos du Coeur, the Red Cross and the French Federation of Food Banks, has requested a meeting with President Emmanuel Macron, Stellittano said, so far without success.
But with inflation still running close to 5 percent, a government price cap on energy bills ending and rents continuing to rise, he says the issue is more urgent than ever.
"All the warning lights are on," Stellittano said. "Our volunteers are wiped out, they're frustrated, they're angry at not being able to help people in a dignified manner and at seeing working people turn up at our food centres.
"The situation is really hard to bear, morally and economically."
