Pouvoir d’achat, fast-food low cost et inégalités croissantes

What does “casser les prix” mean in French?

When a French shop or chain wants to win customers, it can casser les prix — sell things for much less than everyone else. The verb casser means “to break,” but here nothing is broken: you “break” the normal price down to a very low one. You will hear this a lot in French news about shopping, sales, and business competition. It is a clean, everyday way to say “we cut prices hard.”

In this clip about cheap food and rising inequality, the speaker points out that the fast-food chains “ont cassé les prix il y a 20 ans” — “slashed their prices 20 years ago.” The irony: those same chains are now “trop chers” (too expensive) compared to even newer, cheaper rivals. So the old price-cutters now look expensive. The verb casser means “to break.” With prices, it does not mean something is damaged — it means pushing the price far below what other sellers charge. Two related words from the clip: le low cost (cheap, simple service, no extras) and une enseigne (a shop brand or chain). The opposite idea is monter en gamme, “to move upmarket,” which the speaker says McDonald’s did — before it went back to cheap menus to compete. You can also use it about one seller: “Ce vendeur casse les prix” = “This seller is way cheaper than the rest.” It is common and informal in both everyday and business French.