Fuels: “E. Leclerc cannot keep up with TotalEnergies in the price war, recognizes Michel-Édouard Leclerc

“We will always be cheaper.” The boss of TotalEnergies Patrick Pouyanné relaunched the fuel price war last weekend, taking advantage of the release of strategic diesel stocks decided by the government.

“If E. Leclerc puts diesel at 2.15 euros, I will put it at 2.14. We will always be cheaper,” he said on Monday, November 2. This Tuesday, the boss of the distributor, Michel-Édouard Leclerc, admitted on LCI that “Leclerc cannot keep up with Total”, believing that its competitor, who is also its supplier, does not “sell it fuel at a price which allows it to compete”.

“So much the better that the French have cheaper fuel,” conceded, a good sport, the boss of the strategic committee of the centers E. Leclerc. “We woke up the great Total albatross which was lying on the bridge, it’s been 40 years since it stopped racing us for the cheapest fuel,” smiled Michel-Édouard Leclerc.

Since last March, in the wake of the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East, TotalEnergies has capped its prices at the pump in France. Today, diesel is capped at 2.25 euros. On Friday, the French oil giant announced that it would lower “the price of diesel to 2.15 euros per liter, from this Saturday, October 31, in the 705 Access stations in its network which represent 60% of TotalEnergies’ fuel sales.” Michel-Édouard Leclerc, however, believes that the French group “could go much lower than Leclerc or Carrefour because it has refineries” and is therefore in control of its refiner margin on the finished product.

While the government is counting on a drop of 12 to 18 euro cents in the price per liter of diesel thanks to the destocking of barrels from French strategic stocks, 80% of E. Leclerc service stations have lowered their prices by 21 cents, said Michel-Édouard Leclerc. “15 cents less per liter of diesel in 48 hours. Nearly 30% of stations have even lowered their prices by at least 20 cents,” Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu welcomed on X on Monday evening.