Jean-Luc Mélenchon corrects a sentence of Emmanuel Macron, who is right

Responding to criticisms of yellow vests, Emmanuel Macron repeated, Tuesday during his speech on the ecological transition, an argument that he has been using for two weeks now: "In concrete terms, the price of the fuel tank or the amount of the bill of gas, mainly depend on the decisions of Russia, Saudi Arabia or Iran.This is the reality. " Immediately, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, commenting live on Twitter the remarks of the Head of State, evokes a "fake news". According to the insubordinate leader of France, Emmanuel Macron is mistaken because, "in reality, 60% of the price of fuel and gas comes from the taxes of the public power".

❌ Fake news from #Macron who claims that the price of the full tank of gas and the gas bill depend mainly on the decisions of Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc.
✅ In fact, 60% of taxes in the price of fuel and the price of gas is set by the public authorities.

– Jean-Luc Mélenchon (@JLMelenchon) November 27, 2018

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To avoid being criticized by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Emmanuel Macron should have said that he spoke of the increase in the price of gasoline. Explanations.

1. Mélenchon is right: taxes are a good 60% in the price of a liter of gas

In France, as the Ufip, the French Union of Petroleum Industries, details, the price of a liter of fuel is distributed as such:

• 61.4% of the price of a liter of unleaded 95 or 58.6% of the price of a liter of diesel represents the weight of taxes
• 25% represent the price of a barrel of oil
• 7% represents distribution costs (transport in mainland France and margins of gas station companies)
• 4 to 5% represents refining costs

The detail of the price of a liter of fuel gives reason to Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Except that Emmanuel Macron evoked in his speech the trigger of the wrath of the Yellow Vests: the increase in the price of liter of gas, very strong in October. However, it is not taxation that has caused this sudden explosion of prices at the pump.

In fact, the taxes on diesel fuel have increased, on January 1, 2018, about 7 cents per liter and those on unleaded gasoline by almost 4 cents. But this increase does not explain that of 23% of the liter of diesel between January 1st and October 1st, 2018, at the origin of the petitions launched by the yellow Vests.

2. Macron is not wrong: in October, 70% of the price of gasoline flowed well from the international context

Since January 2016, a barrel of Brent oil continues to increase, from $ 28.4 per liter, on January 11, 2016, to $ 86.45 on October 3. Fluctuations caused by the international context, including three recent political decisions:

• The decision of Donald Trump to apply, in early October, US sanctions against Iran.
• The agreement last spring between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia to limit the production of hydrocarbons in order to boost prices.
• Saudi Arabia's willingness to pull prices up during the first six months of the year to facilitate the IPO of its national company Aramco – last August, Riyadh finally decided to postpone this entry into stock market without specifying a date.

In the same way, it is political decisions that caused the sudden reversal of oil prices in October, reaching last Friday, their lowest level in a year ($ 58 per liter). First, the United States has allowed eight countries (including China and India, heavy consumers) to temporarily buy Iranian oil despite sanctions. In addition, OPEC countries and Russia have, over the last three months, increased their oil production to meet growing needs. Only Saudi Arabia, worried about the fall in oil prices, advocates a new limitation of production. The OPEC summit, scheduled for December 6, will be the occasion for a debate on the subject.

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Even if these fluctuations are pbaded on by distributors for a period of two to three weeks, they explain the jagged curve of prices at the pump. In October, the price at the pump was 17 cents higher – to 1.57 euro per liter. Of these 17 cents, 5 cents come from the rise in taxes; 70% of the increase was related to the rise in the cost of gasoline duty-free.

Emmanuel Macron is therefore right to blame the recent increase "for the decisions of Russia, Saudi Arabia or Iran", even if he expresses badly: he should have specified in his speech that he was not talking about the "price of the tanker" as a rule, but prices at the pump in October.