On February 12, 2022, a 70-year-old retiree, in the midst of great financial difficulties, was arrested in the suburbs of Athens trying to rob a supermarket of the German brand Lidl, a discount store. He had hidden in his bag meat and cheese for an amount of 40 euros. The arrest sparked a solidarity movement, several of the brand’s stores were vandalized and the company ended up withdrawing its complaint against the septuagenarian.
In February 2023, in Spain, the Basque television channel ETB dedicated a live broadcast to the escalation of food prices in stores. The journalist stands in front of the checkout counters at a supermarket in San Sebastián, when, in the background, viewers watch a young man jogging, his pockets bulging, touching the security doors, before being chased by a cashier and a guard of security. On Twitter, some wondered if he was “the young man who [volait] or the supermarket with its prices”.
London, in a Coop supermarket. The £5.99 (€6.80) steak is housed in a huge, intimidating secure plastic box, marked in large black letters: “GPS protected.” You have to go to the only cashier in the store (all other payments are automatic) to unlock the precious product. “We are obliged to put padlocks, because there are robberies all the time, she confesses. But that doesn’t really stop people. They often pick up a few boxes and just run out. It’s hard to stop them. »
In Berlin, in the popular Gesundbrunnen neighborhood, the scene is almost similar, again in a Lidl supermarket. In the fridge of the butcher’s and fishmonger’s there is a yellow label: “safe article”. This protects several products: a salmon fillet from Norway at 9.99 euros, first-rate ground beef, Uruguayan veal steak, etc. ” Are [ceux] which are stolen particularly often, explains an employee. Everything is stolen here, especially since prices began to rise. »
From Greece to Spain, passing through the United Kingdom and Germany, not forgetting France, food thefts are multiplying throughout Europe. The inflationary shock, which initially came from energy prices, has now spread to all food products. In the euro zone, food inflation reached 15% per year in February. France is in the middle, with 14.5%, Germany with 22%, the Baltics between 25% and 30%.
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