Renewable energy: the Council of State examines the State's objectives

However, he recommended that the government adopt a decree specifying the rules for installing wind turbines.

"Neither European Union law nor national law establishes the existence of a trajectory that the State would be required to follow until 2030, failing which there is no need to carry out a trajectory check," said the public rapporteur, during a public hearing held at the Council of State on Monday afternoon.

The request was filed in June 2023 by the association "Renewable Energy for All", which denounces a lack of resources deployed by the State to enable a massive growth of renewable energies (ENR).

It aimed, in particular, to force the State to achieve "the objective of 40% renewable energy in gross final energy consumption in 2030 and 42,5% in overall energy consumption in accordance with the latest community obligations".

Certainly, France has not met its renewable energy development targets set for 2020 - i.e. 23% - "neither in 2021, nor in 2022, nor in 2023", noted the public rapporteur, but for 2024, the 23% threshold "will be exceeded", according to the productions of the Ministry responsible for Energy.

"Under these conditions, even if there may be a one-off, and even repeated, ignorance, there does not appear to be (...) a clear ignorance of a rule of law in the performance of its mission by the administration," concludes the public rapporteur.

He did, however, plead for the Council of State to order the Prime Minister to issue the decree provided for in Article 545-15 of the Environmental Code, following a request from the renewable energy company Eolise.

"This decree, which appears necessary for the application of the law, has still not been issued, well beyond a reasonable period of time to do so," explained the public rapporteur, asking that the Prime Minister issue this decree "within six months" from the decision of the Council of State, which will be made in the coming weeks.