The basket you cannot avoid

Country	Unavoidable basket since 2021	Gap with headline inflation	Average price paid at the till, food	Average price paid at the till, all retail
Belgium	+32.11%	+7.62 pts	+26.47%	+19.90%
Germany	+28.38%	+3.77 pts	+28.92%	+21.64%
Spain	+25.93%	+2.81 pts	+34.94%	+25.38%
France	+24.63%	+5.60 pts	+20.69%	+13.60%

Economy

Published inflation is not the inflation you pay

In France the unavoidable basket is up 24.63 % since 2021, while the headline index is up 19.03 %. A gap of 5.60 points, the widest since 2015.

The unavoidable basket adds up three items nobody deletes: food, housing including water and energy, and transport. Each is weighted by its official weight in the harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP, the inflation measure built to be comparable across European countries) for the relevant year, not by a frozen weight: 47 % of household spending in France and in Germany in 2025, 45 % in Spain, 42 % in Belgium (source: Eurostat, prc_hicp_inw). The basket and the headline index are then brought onto the same base, the 2021 annual average, and compared on the same month. Without that double precaution, the gap between the two means nothing. As of July 2026, the unavoidable basket is up 32.11 % in Belgium, 28.38 % in Germany, 25.93 % in Spain and 24.63 % in France since 2021 (source: Eurostat, prc_hicp_minr, computed by Nexelys). The gap with headline inflation stands at 7.62 points in Belgium, 5.60 in France, 3.77 in Germany and 2.81 in Spain. August 2026 does not ease that diagnosis. Annual harmonised inflation climbs back to 2.7 % in France, 2.9 % in Germany, 4.2 % in Belgium and 4.5 % in Spain, against 2.0 %, 2.4 %, 3.3 % and 3.6 % respectively in June (source: Eurostat, August 2026). All four accelerate at once, driven by dearer energy. Unemployment, by contrast, stays widely dispersed: 4.0 % in Germany, 6.0 % in Belgium, 8.3 % in France and 10.0 % in Spain in July 2026 (source: Eurostat).

🔍 Focus: why published inflation and felt inflation never meet

A headline price index is a weighted average of everything an average household consumes, including what it can do without. When electronics fall, clothing stagnates and fuel climbs, the average stays moderate, while the budget of a household that buys neither a television nor a coat that month genuinely rises. That is exactly what the gap between the unavoidable basket and the headline index measures: by how many points published inflation understates what is borne by a household whose spending is concentrated on the incompressible. Two classic mistakes make this reading false, and we rule both out. The first is comparing two series that do not share a base: an index rebased on 2015 against another rebased on 2021 produces a gap that is entirely artificial. The second is comparing two different months, which layers a seasonal shift on top of the real gap. Here everything is computed on the 2021 average and on the same month. One last precaution: the weights. HICP weights are revised every year. Applying the 2025 weights to the year 2022 would rewrite the past. Each month carries the weights of its own year.

📈 Market indicators: Economy

Unavoidable basket since 2021, July 2026: Belgium +32.11 %, Germany +28.38 %, Spain +25.93 %, France +24.63 % (source: Eurostat, computed by Nexelys)
Gap with headline inflation, July 2026: Belgium +7.62 pts, France +5.60 pts, Germany +3.77 pts, Spain +2.81 pts (source: Eurostat, computed by Nexelys)
Annual harmonised inflation, August 2026: Spain 4.5 %, Belgium 4.2 %, Germany 2.9 %, France 2.7 % (source: Eurostat)
Why the pair matters: the first two columns do not rank in the same order. France has the lowest headline inflation of the four since 2021, +19.03 %, and the second-widest gap. Level and mismatch are two different questions.

⚠️ The gap widened over one year in all four countries: from 4.44 to 5.60 points in France, from 5.98 to 7.62 in Belgium, from 3.35 to 3.77 in Germany and from 2.45 to 2.81 in Spain between July 2025 and July 2026 (source: Eurostat, computed by Nexelys). With harmonised inflation accelerating in all four countries in August, the point to watch is simple: does the gap narrow when energy falls back, or has it settled in?

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Construction

A building site does not pay the average either

The building cost index is up 3.9 % year on year. The road-surfacing index is up 15.4 %.

The mechanism behind the unavoidable basket does not stop at the household trolley. It reappears, identically, inside construction cost indices. In June 2026 the BT01 index, which tracks all-trades building cost, stands at 138.3 on a 2010 base, up 3.9 % year on year. Over the same period the TP09 index, which tracks the manufacture of road asphalt mixes, reaches 143.3 and is up 15.4 % (source: INSEE, June 2026). Close to four times as much. The gap is not a matter of labour or margins: it is essentially about energy. Here too, an average, the whole family of works indices, hides one item nobody can bypass. Demand, meanwhile, is not weakening. Over the twelve months to July 2026, 355,600 housing units were authorised in France, up 5.0 % year on year (source: SDES, Sit@del2 database, recent months provisional). The paradox of this autumn sits in those two lines: authorised volumes are picking up while the energy-linked cost items are picking up too. Any structure committed on a fixed-price contract carries that gap inside its margin.

🔍 Focus: why road asphalt is the most energy-intensive item on a site

An asphalt mix is aggregate, bitumen and heat. Bitumen is a residue of crude oil refining: its price follows the barrel with a lag of a few weeks. The heat is purchased energy: the mixing plant brings the blend to around 160 degrees before loading. A cost item that contains both a petroleum product and a production energy consumption therefore reacts twice to the same energy shock. All-trades building, which BT01 tracks, is built differently: labour weighs heavily, materials are more diversified, and the energy used on site is marginal. Hence an index that moves less, in both directions. What this comparison teaches goes beyond the site: an aggregate index means nothing without its composition. Two indices published by the same institution, in the same month, in the same currency, can diverge by more than eleven percentage points over one year, simply because they do not contain the same things.

📈 Market indicators: Construction

BT01 index, all-trades building: 138.3 in June 2026 (2010 base = 100), +3.9 % year on year (source: INSEE)
TP09 index, asphalt mix manufacturing: 143.3 in June 2026, +15.4 % year on year (source: INSEE)
Housing units authorised: 355,600 over twelve months to July 2026, +5.0 % year on year (source: SDES, Sit@del2)
Why it matters: authorised volumes are rising while the most energy-intensive item on a site rises four times faster than building as a whole. The risk sits in contracts signed at a fixed price before the summer.

⚠️ Sit@del2 figures for the most recent months are provisional and revised regularly: the 5.0 % twelve-month rise needs confirming in the next releases. The point to watch this autumn is the BT01 against TP09 gap, which decides the margin on every fixed-price contract signed before the summer.

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Real estate

Volumes came back. Values did not.

952,000 transactions over twelve months, up 7.9 %. Existing-home prices: +0.1 %.

In the first quarter of 2026, 952,000 existing homes were sold in France over twelve rolling months, up 7.9 % year on year (source: Notaires-INSEE index). Over the same period, existing-home prices barely move: +0.1 % year on year. The market has regained volume, not value. Sellers accept the market price, and buyers come back at that price, not above it. Financing explains part of the ceiling on prices. The French ten-year sovereign rate stands at 3.85 % in July 2026, against 3.68 % in June, and the spread against the German rate reaches 0.78 point (source: Eurostat, Maastricht convergence rates). That long rate is the reference from which banks build their mortgage schedules: when it rises, borrowing capacity tightens mechanically, and prices cannot climb. There is a direct link with the unavoidable basket, and it is not the one usually assumed: in the harmonised index, the housing item does not measure the purchase price of a flat. It measures what occupying a home costs.

🔍 Focus: in the price index, housing is not what you think

Item CP04 of the European classification is called housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels. It contains rents, routine maintenance, water, and above all household energy. It does not contain the purchase price of a property, nor loan instalments: in consumer price accounting, buying a home is an investment, not consumption. That convention has a direct consequence for this month's reading. When we write that the French unavoidable basket is up 24.63 % since 2021, the housing contribution comes from rents and domestic energy, not from any rise or stagnation in the price per square metre. A flat property market therefore does nothing to lighten a tenant's unavoidable basket: their energy charges have followed gas and electricity prices. Holding on to that distinction avoids a frequent misreading. Property prices are flat, so housing no longer weighs on households, is false. Purchase price and occupancy cost are two different series, published by different producers, and they can move in opposite directions, as they do in 2026.

📈 Market indicators: Real estate

Existing-home transactions: 952,000 over twelve months in the first quarter of 2026, +7.9 % year on year (source: Notaires-INSEE index)
Existing-home prices, France as a whole: +0.1 % year on year in the first quarter of 2026 (source: Notaires-INSEE index)
French ten-year sovereign rate: 3.85 % in July 2026 against 3.68 % in June, a 0.78 point spread against Germany (source: Eurostat)
Why the pair matters: a market gaining 7.9 % in volume without gaining any price is a market where the adjustment happened through value before it happened through quantity.

⚠️ Notarial prices and volumes cover the first quarter of 2026: that is the normal publication lag, not a delay. The point to watch is the long rate, up 0.17 point, that is 17 basis points, between June and July 2026. If it settles above 3.85 %, the recovery in volumes will run into borrowing capacity before it runs into prices.

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Transport

Hauliers have stopped investing

Demand addressed to hauliers loses 24.3 points in one year. New heavy goods vehicle registrations fall 15.6 %.

INSEE's monthly business survey in road freight transport asks company heads a simple question: is the demand addressed to you rising or falling? The answer, expressed as a balance of opinion, stands at -26.4 in June 2026, against -2.1 in June 2025: 24.3 points lost in one year (source: INSEE). Activity prospects in the sector follow the same path, from -17.7 to -26.3, that is 8.6 points lost. That deterioration in judgement then shows up in decisions. In July 2026, 3,652 new heavy goods vehicles were registered in France, against 4,329 in July 2025: a 15.6 % fall year on year (source: SDES, new vehicle registrations). A haulier who doubts their demand does not renew the fleet, they extend it. The contrast with private motorists is striking. In that same month of July 2026, 44,831 new battery-electric passenger cars were registered, against 19,955 a year earlier, a rise of 124.7 % (source: SDES). Households are making choices and investing in an unavoidable item, transport; hauliers are waiting.

🔍 Focus: fuel is both a household basket item and a haulier's first variable cost

Item CP07, transport, in the harmonised index covers vehicle purchases, fuel, maintenance and tickets. It is one of the three blocks of the unavoidable basket. That very same fuel is, for a road haulier, the first variable operating cost. An energy shock therefore hits both at the same moment, through the same channel, which makes transport a forward observation post for what is coming for households. The order of appearance matters. The haulier first sees costs rise, then, a few weeks or a few months later, sees demand fall, because their customers either pass the cost on or compress it. That is why a balance of opinion on demand addressed to hauliers often deteriorates before household consumption weakens in the statistics. One point of vocabulary, often mishandled: a balance of opinion moves in points, not in percent. Going from -2.1 to -26.4 is 24.3 points lost. Writing a percentage change on a balance that can switch sign produces no usable information at all.

📈 Market indicators: Transport

Trend in demand addressed to hauliers: balance of -26.4 in June 2026 against -2.1 in June 2025, that is 24.3 points lost (source: INSEE)
New heavy goods vehicle registrations: 3,652 in July 2026 against 4,329 a year earlier, -15.6 % (source: SDES)
New battery-electric passenger car registrations: 44,831 in July 2026 against 19,955 a year earlier, +124.7 % (source: SDES)
Why the pair matters: households keep investing in their transport item while transport professionals stop renewing theirs. Both decisions answer to the same energy price, in opposite directions.

⚠️ A fleet that is not renewed grows older, and an older fleet burns more fuel and breaks down more often. The point to watch this autumn is not the registration count of a single month, but how long this fall lasts: beyond three or four quarters, the effect moves from the manufacturers' order books to the hauliers' operating costs.

→ Get the detailed transport analysis every month

This month's intuition

Four countries, the same gap

Published inflation is not the inflation you pay

🔍 Focus: why published inflation and felt inflation never meet

A building site does not pay the average either

🔍 Focus: why road asphalt is the most energy-intensive item on a site

Volumes came back. Values did not.

🔍 Focus: in the price index, housing is not what you think

Hauliers have stopped investing

🔍 Focus: fuel is both a household basket item and a haulier's first variable cost

The common thread: 4 sectors, 1 same message

September 2026 macro context

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Sources & methodology