Foie gras and filet mignon? With purchasing power in free-fall, maybe it’s French chips instead

The Made in France trade show, which promotes domestic manufacturing, is set to attract over 110,000 visitors from Thursday to Sunday. But people aren’t spending the way they used to.PARIS (CN) — On the outskirts of Paris Friday morning, thousands of people swarmed through “Made in France,” the mecca of local artisanal fare, under fluorescent lights and exposed pipes.Over 1,000 exhibitors are selling their products — from foie gras to polka-dot socks to washing machines — from Thursday to Sunday; turnout is expected to exceed 110,000 people. But merchants are operating in an uncomfortable climate: Homegrown products are expensive, and consumers are tightening their belts amid a cost-of-living crisis.“At all the trade shows we’re doing right now, consumption is down 20% to 30%. Even if there are more people, they spend less no matter what,” Alexandre Kepenekian, owner of Le Carré de Picq, a cured-meat business in the nation’s southeast, said. “It started last year, and now it’s in a sharp, sharp decline since — we could say since the events in Ukraine, since the election of Donald Trump, since all those people who are fucking things up … well, making a mess of the economy.”Kepenekian sells products like prosciutto, dry-cured filet mignon and sausages to professionals — he doesn’t have a brick-and-mortar shop, and he said that this model is working well — luckily, since people are more reluctant to use their cars with high gas prices.“The fuel crisis really put the brakes on a lot of things, and we can see that consumption patterns inside the stores aren’t the same at all anymore,” he said. “As soon as you have stores that are a bit out of the way, where people are expected to drive to … they’re taking a huge hit, you know.”Nearby, people crowded around a booth selling different varieties of potato chips. One woman walked by, observing the samples on display.“Chips! This isn’t possible, ooh la la,” she exclaimed to the person next to her. “But three to four euros isn’t expensive … I guess we’ll be eating chips then.”Crowds swarming through the food section of Made in France on Nov. 13, 2026. (Lily Radziemski/Courthouse News)Mathieu Plane, a deputy director at the French Institute of Economics known as the IFE, explained that the purchasing power of households has declined for two years in a row — for only the third time in the past 50 years.“Wages today no longer allow for gains in purchasing power, and in fact, over the past five years, it has even been declining,” he said. “That means it doesn’t even keep up with inflation, so there’s an impoverishment of employees.”Nearby the trade show, Vincent Garcia was tending his flower shop Friday morning. He doesn’t think much about where his personal things come from, but he’s noticed huge hikes on items for his shop.“Before, there were a lot of French manufacturers, but now they come from Poland and eastern countries because the glass is more expensive,” he said, pointing to a vase. “I used to pay 25 euros for this, now it’s 75.”Michelle Belascain selling fois gras at Made in France on Nov. 13, 2026. (Lily Radziemski/Courthouse News)Pascale Hébel, associate director of the consumer monitoring firm C-Ways, said the French food sector has been surprisingly resilient in recent years, especially with the over-65 demographic.“Young people are much less focused on these territorial notions,” she said. “They’re less sensitive to this topic, and when we try to dig deeper, to understand, we ask … why, what makes people choose French products?”Hébel said consumers want to support livestock breeders and farmers, since many have ties to rural life — even if those ties go back a few generations. In general, French people also care deeply about food quality, both in terms of taste and production standards. The Mercosur free trade agreement with South American nations has reinforced a local preference, since French products don’t include certain pesticides.Michelle Belascain, a merchant selling foie gras from Basque country on Friday, said she has noticed a change in purchasing patterns in recent years. But she’s not discouraged.“Of course we’ve noticed that people are making choices. Before, if they bought both the foie gras and also got the pack of pâtés, now maybe they’ll only buy the foie gras," she said. “But we still manage to keep working because our prices are still very reasonable. They know that these are products made with love, that we follow a whole set of standards for quality work, and they’re getting French products — that there are no issues regarding their origin and all that.”Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads