EDF employees, who fear for the health and the future of the group, are on strike this Wednesday. It is the recent request by the State to sell more electricity at low prices to its competitors, which is at the origin of the movement. This shouldn’t cause any power outages. A drop in production of 2,500 MW was still noted overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, and until around 8:00 a.m., when RTE asked for the cuts to stop, the manager told AFP. high and very high voltage lines.
As a reminder, the government’s request aims to contain the electricity bill of households and businesses in the face of soaring energy prices. One measure among many others, in order to honor its promise to limit the increase in regulated electricity prices to 4% in 2022, in a sensitive context, a few weeks before the presidential election.
A decision “without taking into account the long-term consequences”
At the energy company, the last measure announced sparked an outcry: increasing by 20% the volume of nuclear electricity sold at a reduced price to its competitors this year, will cost the group around 8 billion euros.
After this announcement, the four main unions in the energy sector called for a strike by EDF employees on Wednesday. “It’s a totally absurd decision, taken without measuring the long-term consequences. It will considerably weaken EDF, ”said Eric Kozlowski, CFE-CGC union representative at the Golfech nuclear power plant in Tarn-et-Garonne on Wednesday.
For him, other solutions exist, such as a VAT reduced to 5.5% on the price of electricity, “but obviously, no other avenue has been studied by the government”. However, EDF needs to invest “to meet the challenges of combating global warming”.