The government buries the idea of ​​a law on France's energy strategy

The announcement made Wednesday evening by the Minister for Industry and Energy Roland Lescure to the newspaper Le Figaro, and confirmed Thursday by his cabinet, puts an end to months of hesitation.

The production objectives by energy sector (nuclear and renewable) will ultimately be "adopted by regulatory means", the ministry told the press.

“It is clear that between pro-ENR and pro-nuclear, there is a real war of religion and that there is really a desire to be efficient, rapid and to give visibility,” said the ministry. to justify its renunciation of a law, against a backdrop of difficulties in obtaining a majority in Parliament on the subject.

Since 2019, however, the law provides that the subject of energy programming be debated in Parliament, as environmental associations recalled on Thursday. “Without an energy law, the government is outlawing the law,” reacted the Climate Action Network while Greenpeace deplored “time wasted to the detriment of the energy transition as well as the total and worrying disregard for legislative power, which is supposed to be sovereign" on the major climate and energy orientations.

This multi-annual energy program (PPE) will finally be subject to public consultation "from May" for "two months" with a view to a decree published "by the end of the year", according to the ministry.

Faced with the imperative to move away from fossil fuels to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050, the government intends to set the course “for all low-carbon energies”.

"This involves increasing electricity production from 450 to 650 TWh", which implies that EDF's current nuclear fleet must return to its "historic level of production", at "minimum 360 TWh, with an objective at 400 TWh" while the new reactors are not expected before 2035-2037 at best.

On the renewable side, it is a question of "multiplying the production of renewable gas by 5 between today and 2035", of multiplying solar energy capacities by 5 and of "doubling the power of onshore wind turbines", installations which divide locally. Should we “double the power of wind turbines or double the number of wind turbines”? The question will be submitted for consultation.

Consumer protection

With these objectives, the government intends to achieve by 2030-2035 more than “50% decarbonized energy in the energy mix”, and thus exceed the objectives of 44% renewables set by the European Union.

For the government, which has made "technological neutrality" a fight against Germany opposed to nuclear power, the trajectory involves "going as far as possible on all the cursors". “We are building the energy infrastructure for the next fifty years,” Minister Roland Lescure declared to Le Figaro.

The executive will contact the National Commission for Public Debate (CNDP) by the end of the week, which will be responsible for organizing a consultation under the aegis of its guarantors, with results expected “at the end of the summer” . This consultation will, however, not address the national low carbon strategy (SNBC) for 2050, which must be the subject of another consultation at a date not yet defined.

The draft decree will be the "fruit" of work which is "largely completed", after "a certain number of technical studies" and "many consultations" some of which "involved parliamentarians", argued the ministry .

This preliminary work, which led at the end of November to the publication of a 102-page document, the French Strategy for Energy and Climate (SFEC), constituted the beginnings of an energy and climate programming law. First announced in the Council of Ministers for the beginning of February, the bill was ultimately stripped of its energy and climate objectives in January, before disappearing from the radar.

What remains of this aborted text are two parts which will make good progress in Parliament. A "legislative text" is planned to protect consumers against abuses by energy suppliers while "a parliamentary mission" will look into hydroelectric dams, currently lacking investment due to an old dispute with Brussels.