Energy prices: 7 out of 10 French people feel “taken for pigeons” when it comes to their electricity bill

EXCLUSIVE – Faced with increasing energy prices, the French are banging their fists on the table. More than half of them “feel like pigeons” when faced with the rise in their electricity bill.

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73% of French people believe they pay too much for electricity. Since 2022 and the start of the war in Ukraine, energy prices have jumped. With the gradual end of the price shield introduced by the government, French households are increasingly feeling the impact of rising electricity prices. 56% of French people “feel taken for pigeons” facing their electricity bill, reports an OpinionWay survey for mylight150, published on December 3.

Nearly seven in ten French people (67%) note that their uses lead to increasing electricity consumption. This is the case of Sébastien, who lives in a 150 square meter house with a swimming pool, near Montpellier. “We see our bill increasing but we cannot clearly identify the source of these increases. Is it the new charger for the electric car, or the pool pump?” asks the fifty-year-old. According to him, this increase is linked on the one hand to his family’s consumption habits and on the other hand to the increase in the price of the kilowatt hour. Sébastien believes that his bill has jumped “by around 30% in two years”.

Create new habits to lower your grade

To cope with this increase, this father introduced new measures within his household. “We installed reversible air conditioning, we limit the heating and we instead use the fireplace in which we added an insert in order to optimize the heat”he says. Sébastien is also considering purchasing solar panels in order to “to produce energy from home”. And he’s not the only one. Almost one in two French people (44%) say they have already considered self-consumption via solar panels to reduce their energy bill. A way for the majority of people surveyed (77%) to regain control over their energy expenditure.

Marina passed the milestone. This mother of four lives in a large house in the south of France. The family installed photovoltaic panels in 2023 which allowed them to reduce their energy bill by almost half. “In 2021, we were at around 4,500 euros of energy consumption for six people and in 2024, we managed to increase to 2,400 euros”specifies Marina. “We are big consumers”she believes. Faced with the energy bill, the family thought of a way to lower the bill. “We might as well invest in something that will save us money in the years to come,” justifies Marina.

Beyond solar energy, the transition to all-electric is attractive. Nearly one in two French people (49%) believe that this is a current issue. They are well aware of the omnipresence of this energy in their current lives. 67% of French people realize that they are consuming more and more electricityan even more common finding among those under 35 (76%). Ondine Suavet, co-founder and co-CEO of mylight150, discusses a “crisis of confidence in the supplier supposed to be a trusted partner” and a problem around the “transparency on invoices“. Indeed, to lower the bill, the French are quite reluctant to seek advice from their energy supplier (only 17% do so) and prefer to turn to their own expertise or that of their loved ones.