Ecological planning: France will phase out coal in 2027, Macron announces

For the ecological transition, "the first thing, and this is the fight we must wage for the country and internationally, we must get rid of coal, it is a fossil energy and the most polluting", a- he declared during a television interview on the TF1 and France 2 channels, on the eve of detailing ecological planning at the Elysée.

“By 2027, what are we going to do? We still have two coal-fired power plants, Cordemais (west) and Saint-Avold (east), we are going to completely convert them to biomass,” he said. said, about the "first very concrete measure of this planning".

Emmanuel Macron had already promised to close all coal-fired power plants, a fuel extremely harmful to the climate, by the end of his five-year term.

For Cordemais (Loire-Atlantique), a conversion project has already been implemented.

But the Saint-Avold power plant, which closed at the start of 2022, was called upon again last winter to secure the country's supply in a context of energy tension.

Greenpeace deplored a "setback" on Sunday evening, recalling that for his first five-year term Emmanuel Macron had first promised to get France out of coal in 2022.

“France should have phased out coal years ago. If he was truly ambitious and pioneering, Emmanuel Macron would also have announced dates for phasing out oil and fossil gas,” adds the NGO.

As for gas boilers, “I asked myself the question a lot, we will not ban it,” said the president.

“We will not prohibit” the installation of new gas boilers, “because we cannot leave our compatriots, particularly in the most rural areas, without a solution,” explained Mr. Macron. But the Head of State also pleaded to “support households to equip themselves with heat pumps, because heat pumps are intelligent, they save energy and they greatly reduce emissions ".

“And we are going to produce these heat pumps in France, we are going to triple production,” he said, without further details.

“We reindustrialize through ecology,” he again assured, also citing the case of electric vehicles, that France will be able to produce on its soil (“at least one million” by the end of the five-year term, a- he assured).

“What is very important for our French is that we are attached to the car, we love the car, and I love it,” he stressed.

In the meantime, faced with soaring fuel prices, he invited the government to reintroduce compensation of up to "100 euros per car per year", for the most modest "workers" and who "need to drive ".