Emmanuel Macron had a simple message last week for French businesses preparing to sign punishingly costly energy contracts: don’t do it.
Companies should spurn the “crazy prices” currently on offer, the French president said, insisting that European governments would succeed in making markets work again and bringing costs back down to reasonable levels.
Aymeric Le Jemtel, chief executive of Veta France, a small company that manufactures cladding for buildings at a factory in northern France, finds it hard to share Macron’s confidence. The brick suppliers that Veta relies on across Europe have been raising their prices to offset the high cost of the natural gas they use to power their ovens. Some have even been cancelling orders that have become unprofitable.