Replacement of gas boilers: for artisans, "the schedule is not sustainable"

"We cannot say that in 2026, we will eliminate the gas boiler and train 200.000 heating engineers in the heat pump. Christophe Repon, recently re-elected president of Capeb.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne presented on Monday a plan to reduce France's greenhouse gas emissions, in which the change of boilers is among the first targeted items, without mentioning a specific timetable.

But according to Mr. Repon, received like other leaders of employers' organizations on Tuesday by Ms. Borne as part of the social agenda, the Prime Minister mentioned 2026 as "possible and potentially desirable deadline".

He says he asked him to take into account the "practical reality". “I said it to Elisabeth Borne and will say it again to Olivier Klein”, the Minister of Housing, “it does not hold until the EPRs are not built” to produce the electricity necessary for the heat pumps.

The executive's plan expects a significant saving of 8 million tonnes of CO2 per year from the decline of oil and gas boilers in housing. But the decision is not clear either on how, between increased aid or new regulations.

Mr. Repon also castigated the recent start, on May 1, of the four new building waste recycling sectors known as extended producer responsibility (REP), yet already postponed twice.

Free for private individuals and building tradesmen in specially provided collection points, the collection is now financed by an "eco-contribution" paid by the "marketers", manufacturers and importers of cement, pipes, glass wool or sanitary...

"Nobody understood the REP and yet it is operational", lamented Mr. Repon according to which the companies concerned "pay an ecotax without having the collection points".