Prices for a litre of diesel in France on Wednesday skyrocketed to an average €1.66 (nearly Rs 145) at the pumps breaking a 2-year record since France's iconic 'Yellow Vests’ movement. The diesel price spike was followed by the exorbitant hike in the prices of household gas. This was the first time in several years that the European nation's citizens witnessed the expense of the fuel go up dramatically, local press reported, Last week, diesel was priced at €1.5354 (Rs 133) on average per litre, but has shot up by 28 percent increase, data from the French Ministry of Ecological Transition has revealed. 

As the overall fuel costs spiked in France, the cost of petrol also witnessed a steep rise in recent weeks. Though the cost €1.6332 it is yet to surpass the record of €1.6664 set in 2012.

Global market variation hikes fuel price despite tax rise cancellation

During the COVID-19 pandemic peak time in May 2020, fuel prices tumbled to €1.16 for diesel and €1.23 for petrol. The low cost was attributed to the global economy coming to a halt all of a sudden. But the removal of lockdown in countries worldwide including France, and economic recovery has put several EU nations under strain. We’re at $83 per barrel. Two weeks ago, we were at $70 the barrel,” economist Philippe Chalmin told BFMTV. That’s twice as high as it was a year ago, he stressed in his televised remarks. France’s current fuel prices are significantly higher than the record prices in 2018 that sparked the Gilets Jaunes protests nationwide. Following the protests, the French government scrapped the planned fuel tax rises, but the global market variation spiked the cost of fuel by an estimated 60 per cent of the price that the French consumers earlier paid. 

France's high diesel and petrol prices are also being influenced by the international market's changing footprint, such as China has been using petrol to produce electricity slashing the country's dependency on foreign resources. 

“It takes an average of eleven working days to observe 90% of the transmission of cost variation to prices and the total repercussion to fuel prices takes about twenty working days”,  the report of the Ministry of Ecological Transition stated on Wednesday. A study from la Banque de France meanwhile said: “It takes on average 11 working days for 90% of the variation in costs to be transmitted to the overall price, and the total impact on the price of fuel takes around 20 working days to come through.”