Legislative elections: UFC-Que Choisir presents its 20 priorities for the environment, purchasing power, and the reduction of territorial inequalities

The association is today making public its 20 priorities structured around 3 components: the protection of the environment and the health of citizens, their purchasing power, and, finally, the reduction of territorial inequalities. She calls on candidates to seize them and defend them within the framework of the campaign, and to implement them at the end of the elections in a major law on consumption.

Promote responsible consumption, mindful of environmental, health and societal issues

The promotion of responsible consumption, accessible to all, constitutes for our association the heart of its fights. During the outgoing legislature, we could only deplore numerous setbacks on health and environmental issues linked to the use of pesticides. On the contrary, candidates must commit to strictly restrict their use. This must be accompanied by all measures enabling guarantee access to quality drinking water throughout the territory, free of nitrates and pesticides, and prevent water waste whether it is due to the poor state of the networks, or to its management unduly favoring intensive agriculture.

Responsible consumption also involves implementing measures to effectively limit energy consumption, particularly fossil fuels. To do this, it is essential to massively support energy renovation to put an end to thermal sieves. To restore consumer confidence in energy renovation work, an activity that strongly generates disputes, we must finally make renovation professionals responsible and impose on them an obligation to produce results for the work they carry out.

In terms of health, food marketing which pushes consumers, and particularly young children, to consume ever more salty, sweet and fatty foods is a major issue. Regulating advertising aimed at children and generalizing the Nutri-Score will be concrete measures to effectively combat obesity and the spread of cardiovascular diseases.

Freeing purchasing power for households

Purchasing power, a major concern of our fellow citizens, must imperatively give rise to immediate and strong measures, which our association has often promoted for a long time.

It is particularly urgent to act to lower food prices on the shelves, which have seen a massive increase over the last two years, by preventing excessive margins from the agri-food industry and mass distribution on essential, healthy and sustainable food products, for example organic products, and by immediately eliminating the guaranteed minimum margin of 10% on food products from which large retailers benefit). The emergency must also make it possible toensure fair energy pricing (reform of the electricity market ensuring consumers pay a price representative of the production costs of the domestic electricity mix, or even overhaul of energy taxation, notably putting an end to the fiscal aberration represented by VAT on taxes).

The legislator must also work to regulate bank rates which are sometimes completely disconnected from the costs borne by the banks (in particular overdraft fees and inheritance bank fees), for protect access to housing in the face of an increase in rents weighing on tenants' budgets (capping of the annual increase in rents at 1% pending a reform of the rules governing rent increases, as well as extension to social housing of the freezing of rents in thermal sieves), but also for ensure that the necessary transition to electric vehicles allows consumers to buy small, affordable vehicles, while today an electric vehicle costs 25% more than its thermal equivalent.

make access to care financially accessible is imperative. Therefore, it is appropriate to put in place strict supervision of excess fees for the medical professions and to cancel the increase in medical deductibles. Concerning our elders specifically, it is urgent to limit prohibitive out-of-pocket costs for residents in EHPADs, by setting up a “dependency shield” financed by national solidarity and at the same time putting a stop to the price abuses of private, for-profit EHPADs.

Put an end to intolerable territorial inequalities

Through its studies, the UFC-Que Choisir has documented for many years the extent of territorial inequalities, and denounces the absence of strong public measures aimed at remedying them, particularly with regard to medical deserts which are affecting ever-increasing areas. important in the country. To put an end to it, an urgent and courageous measure will be to regulate the installation of doctors, going hand in hand with the imperative to increase and manage the training of health professionals.

The territorial divide also concerns access to childcare for young children, which is particularly complicated in many of our territories. Create an enforceable right to childcare for young children, affordable for all and of quality, must be a measure implemented after the elections. The territorial divide is also digital, since in too many areas, particularly the most rural, access to very high quality broadband remains illusory. Beyond simple promises of a better tomorrow, it is essential to finally establish an enforceable right to have a high quality connection, with compensation for the damage suffered if the latter is not effective.

Territorial inequality also concerns access to quality public transport. This is particularly the case for territories experiencing a massive deficit in train services, or suffering from poor quality provision (crowded trains, chronic delays) whether on main lines or TER. Therefore, the action of the legislator must guarantee the investments necessary for the proper maintenance and modernization of the French railway network, and strengthen the reliability of TER by ensuring that all TER agreements impose high quality objectives on carriers, and automatic financial compensation for users in the event of delay.

As the official campaign opens, the UFC-Que Choisir calls on candidates to take them up as part of the electoral campaign, and defend them during the next legislature.

Illustrative image of the article via Depositphotos.com.