Between the many regulatory issues, proposals and bills left pending and the inevitable financial decisions impacting renovation aid, these three personalities will be decisive in successfully passing the 2025 milestone and anticipating the future:
- Antoine Armand at the head of the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry. It is important to recall his commitment as rapporteur of the commission of inquiry on the loss of energy sovereignty and his very pragmatic vision of the situation: "the energy wall is for tomorrow!"
- Agnès Pannier-Runacher at the head of the Ministry of Ecological Transition, Energy, Climate and Risk Prevention, which recently reaffirmed the implementation of four major pillars including energy efficiency, sobriety and renewable energies.
- Valérie Létard at the head of a fully-fledged Ministry of Housing and Urban Renewal with three areas of strong commitments including renovation and a very clear guideline: "there is work to be done quickly and strongly". We remember in particular her role as Secretary of State for Green Technologies and Climate Negotiations, particularly during the Copenhagen Summit in 2009.
Stabilization of credits allocated to renovation
The year 2025 will be a crucial year with the ban on renting out G-rated properties for new, renewed and extended leases. The next deadlines are 2028 and 2034 for F and E-rated properties respectively.
We are on the eve of an influx of renovations and grant applications as the prediction that "housing will become a social bomb" is about to come true.
The construction sector represents 4 million direct and indirect jobs that cannot be relocated, so a cut in aid would have a devastating effect with a risk of economic decline in the territories of peripheral France.
Beyond the "cost of inaction", it is important to emphasize that renovation aid must be seen as an investment and not as an expense. These subsidies generate work and a significant tax windfall: VAT, corporate tax, etc.
In view of the paths taken and the initial announcements made by members of the Government, we hope that Bercy's financial decisions will be pragmatic and consistent with, at the very least, a stabilisation of the credits allocated to renovation in a budgetary context that we know is constrained.
The evolution of devices
As part of the future finance law, this new Government will urgently have to decide on the various aid schemes, in particular MaPrimeRénov' and Energy Saving Certificates.
If we could have some capacity for experimentation in the mechanisms of subsidies, we unfortunately no longer have the time or the means: we are condemned to succeed in the renovation of housing in the next few years.
It is appropriate to develop the systems without slowing down the renovation dynamic while giving more visibility to the French and to the renovation sector. Individuals, craftsmen or even industrialists, no one can invest without visibility. Energy renovation has too often suffered from these backpedalings over the last 10 years, with multiple "stop and go" measures.
MaPrimeRénov and Energy Saving Certificates, these two systems having shown their effectiveness in recent years, will be re-examined.
Launched on January 1, 2020, MaPrimeRénov was very popular, but suffered from successive unfortunate developments in the first half of 2024. Even if the Government backtracked on some of them, the damage was done.
The cessation of "single-action" subsidies from July 1, 2024 in favor of an obligation of major renovation for properties classified F or G outside of any consumer reality. The Government has reversed this decision and the implementation of "single-action" for thermal strainers has been extended until the end of the year.
The integration of CEE into MaPrimeRénov' "large-scale renovation" has destabilized an entire sector by diverting it from individual residential, which is nevertheless such a priority. The management by the State of the CEE generated by this work destroys any viable economic model for the private sector.
The addition of new technocratic rules (arbitrary threshold of glass walls to be respected disconnected from the thermal analyses carried out, etc.). For example, this restriction poses a major problem, particularly for large bay windows offering beautiful views of gardens, which thermal engineering offices had until then managed to maintain.
A recent report from the Court of Auditors criticizes the CEE system, calling for its abolition or, at the very least, a major reform. It is important to remember that this is the most stable national system because it is governed by a European directive until 2030 and, in fact, is not called into question at each budget session. It is also the only one that applies to all project owners, without any resource conditions.
The paradox is troubling. While France is wondering about the extinction of the system, some of our European neighbors have adopted it strictly speaking. Spain directly "copied and pasted" the French system. This explains why some French CEE delegates are now present on the Iberian Peninsula. After many years of practice, it must evolve. This is what the Minister of the Economy seems to suggest, as well as a recent call for programs from the General Directorate of Energy and Climate.
We must be able to count on the combined experiences and the pragmatic approach of the members of the Government to develop these two systems.
Without radical changes, Synergiec recommends:
- a simplified route for the end customer as well as for the entire sector, a prerequisite for any climate ambition;
- increased control to definitively close the door on eco-delinquency;
- validation of energy and CO2 savings achieved and financed by public aid.
Tribune by Sylvain Lefevre, president of Synergiec (LinkedIn).