: Victory! You will still be able to use your meal vouchers to do your shopping

© Lemon squeezer

Good news for the 5.4 million French people with meal vouchers. Since January 1, 2025, the exceptional measure allowing employees to buy food products that are not necessarily directly consumable has come to an end. Thus, since the beginning of the year, it was no longer possible to buy rice, pasta, oil or other similar products with your meal voucher card. Enough to attract the wrath of consumers.

But this change will not have lasted long. Indeed, by a vote of the Senate, Parliament definitively adopted a bill to extend the exemption from the use of meal vouchers for all food products. To put it simply: you will soon be able to continue doing your grocery shopping with your Swile card.

Excellent news for French households

Originally, meal vouchers were used to finance employees' meals, in the first sense of the term. They were used to pay for restaurant lunches, as well as ready-made meals and salads. Then came the Covid-19 pandemic. Teleworking became the norm, and people had to adapt. So much the better since it was now possible to pay for their groceries with this Holy Grail.

But the government was considering going back on the rules, despite the anger of the French. In November 2024, an extension of this exemption was unanimously voted until December 31, 2026. All that was missing was the Senate's vote to confirm this good news. Unfortunately, the Barnier government's motion of censure had put all the legislative work in progress on hold. It was suspected that it was only a matter of time before the bill was voted on in the Senate. It was about time!

All that remains is to wait for the text to be promulgated by the President of the Republic to be able to buy pasta, rice, flour or olive oil again with restaurant vouchers. This should happen in the next few days. Yay! The Minister Delegate for Trade, Véronique Louwagie, reminds us that it is a question of “the French people’s favorite social benefit” and that it is necessary “to adapt it to the times”.

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