Parents in France shop secondhand as back-to-school costs soar
As a new term begins in France, school supplies are estimated to cost over 11 percent more this year because of high inflation. In one Paris suburb, RFI met parents turning to charity shops to pick up stationery, sports kits, school bags and other essentials for less.
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At the Emmaüs charity shop in Ivry-sur-Seine, on the south-east outskirts of Paris, a stick of glue sells for 50 centimes – a fraction of what you might pay in the supermarket.
“It’s a real bargain to get supplies for cheap, especially with this crisis,” one mother told RFI as she browsed for stationery.
“We can treat ourselves here. You can find almost everything they need for the year.”
As children across France prepare to go back to class after the summer break, it’s up to parents to buy everything on the exhaustive list typically sent out by French schools before la rentrée, the annual September return.
This year, the bill for the various pens, notebooks, sports kit and other supplies that pupils are expected to show up with is markedly steeper: 11.3 percent more than last year, according to household consumer association the Confédération Syndicale des Familles (CSF).
The group estimates that the average cost of buying school supplies for a child in primary school is €233 in 2023, over €40 more than in 2022. Costs for pupils in middle and high school have also climbed to €371 and €427 respectively, though the rise is less steep.
Other estimates have put the average price increase lower, at between 6 and 10 percent – but even at the low end it remains a bigger increase than in previous years, according to Emmanuel Fournet of consumer research company NielsenIQ, which studied school supply bills for FranceInfo.
Inflation bites
The chief factor is inflation, which has been running high in France for the past year, peaking at 6.3 percent in February.
The impact is especially marked in the stationery aisle, since rising energy prices have had a knock-on effect on the cost of paper pulp. According to the CSF, stationery is around 25 percent more expensive this summer.
Not at the Emmaüs in Ivry, which sells items donated to it. All last week it held a special sale on school supplies advertised as being “in excellent condition”.
“The prices are very affordable,” shop manager Pepin Assi told RFI's Sylvie Koffi.
As customers browsed, he explained: “Sometimes we lower the price on the tag, and sometimes we also give things away for free because we realised that there are parents who have lost their jobs ... So what do you do? We have to respond to that too.”
Back-to-school benefits
France provides financial support for families struggling to buy school supplies in the form of a back-to-school allowance (allocation de rentrée scolaire).
Paid out to around 3 million low-income households each August, the allowance was increased by 5.6 percent this year compared to 2022 to account for inflation. It now ranges from €398 for the youngest schoolchildren to €435 for high-schoolers.
The government also asked France’s biggest supermarket chains to limit price increases on school supplies as part of the anti-inflation deal it struck with retailers earlier this year to keep essential products affordable.
Nonetheless, in July the minister for trade, Olivia Grégoire, asked France’s consumer protection agency to look into the rising cost of school supplies. The findings will be delivered in September, she said, taking into account the promotions typically offered at the end of August.
A l’approche de la rentrée, toujours vigilante à la protection du pouvoir d’achat des Français, j’ai demandé aux services de la @dgccrf d’enquêter sur les hausses de prix des fournitures scolaires.
— Olivia Gregoire (@oliviagregoire) July 20, 2023
Les conclusions seront rendues en septembre. https://t.co/InimZWr3Tg
Education minister Gabriel Attal even suggested this week that the government would consider taking steps to make school supplies available to parents at wholesale prices.
“We are going through a very tough period of inflation and school supplies aren’t something you can skimp on,” he told TF1 television.
Donated supplies
In the meantime, charitable organisations are stepping in to help fill school bags before the new term starts on 4 September.
As well as Emmaüs, charities including Secours Populaire Français, Caritas and the Red Cross are encouraging those who can afford it to donate new or used school supplies to be sold cheaply – or given for free – to families in need.
In the eastern city of Strasbourg, for example, Caritas and Secours Populaire say they distributed brand-new supplies to some 1,120 schoolchildren this month, asking only a nominal payment of €2 or less.
The initiative is aimed at parents who don’t qualify for the government’s back-to-school allowance, typically because they’re still working their way through France’s asylum or immigration system.
The number of children receiving help has nearly doubled this year, the charities say; last school year, it was 600.
But even above the poverty line, a growing number of people see the appeal of used supplies.
According to a poll by online financial consultants Yomoni, 32 percent of nearly 1,000 parents surveyed this summer said they were planning to reuse school supplies, while 16 percent were buying secondhand.
Meanwhile French classified ads website Leboncoin reports it has seen searches for folders, pencil cases, backpacks and other school items soar in recent weeks as parents hunt for used goods online.
Back at the Emmaüs in Ivry, one father of three told RFI he comes to the charity shop every rentrée.
“It saves us a bit of money,” he said as he looked for highlighter pens. “It can’t hurt what with inflation as it is. We start at Emmaüs, then whatever we can’t find we’ll look for in the supermarket.”
He’s not bothered that his kids will be returning to school with some secondhand items in their pencil cases.
“As long as it works,” he says. “Plus it’s environmentally friendly – we should be reusing things.”
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