Capping the rise in rents: more than 150 retail brands want to be eligible

"We are ringing the alarm bell to alert you to the need to extend this cap for one year and to extend it to all companies", declared in an open letter to parliamentarians 100 leaders of recognized brands (Kiabi, Etam, H&M, Fnac-Darty, Okaïdi, Micromania, Maisons du Monde, Decathlon, etc.).

Approved on June 1 by the National Assembly, the text will be examined at first reading in the Senate hemicycle on Wednesday afternoon.

He proposes to renew until the beginning of 2024 the "rent shield": a cap on the increase in the reference index of rents at 3,5%. Introduced in the summer of 2022, it is due to end at the end of June 2023. A similar system caps the increase in the commercial rent index (ILC), for SMEs.

“Rents and property charges are increasing, not to say unbearable” and “represent the first or second cost item for our businesses”, specify the signatories.

If "the legislator had estimated that the larger signs could obtain, thanks to over-the-counter negotiations with their lessors, temporary adaptations of their contractual conditions", this is not the case, they claim, "less than 10% of lessors (having) agreed to accompany their tenants".

On May 30, 14 trade and cinema federations had also made such a request to parliamentarians, via a forum, stating that "the ILC increased by 10% between the end of 2019 and 2022".

This increase is added, for the 100 managers of the 150 retail chains, to the increase in the cost of energy and wages, and the drop in consumption volumes: "Thousands of stores will not be able to support indexation such high rents two years in a row", they warn.