In the wake of the Senate, the National Assembly abolished Monday evening the objective of reducing to 50% the share of nuclear energy in the French electricity mix by 2035, during the examination of the bill nuclear acceleration.
Introduced by the Senate, the article adopted at first reading breaks a “lock” introduced into the law in 2015 under the presidency of François Hollande to reduce the share of nuclear energy, which the executive now wishes to relaunch. It was voted by 97 votes against 36 in the Assembly, LR and RN supporting the presidential camp.
The critical left
Ecologist Julie Laernoes denounced a measure which “changes the nature of the text” by calling into question “democratically debated” objectives, after the “Fukushima disaster” of 2011.
Former Minister Barbara Pompili (Renaissance) joined the left to criticize the “form” of this article, which speeds up the future multi-annual energy programming law, expected at best this summer.
“I was very happy to have contributed to the Belfort speech” by Emmanuel Macron, devoted in particular to the relaunch of nuclear power in February 2022, but the law under examination “is supposed to be a technical law” of acceleration , not a programming law on the energy mix, she argued.
“No ceiling or floor”
On the right, the leader of the LR deputies Olivier Marleix was delighted to put an end to an agreement on the 50% written in his eyes on a “corner of the table” between Socialists and Greens at the end of 2011, before the presidential and legislative elections in 2012.
The Minister for Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher explained that she wants “neither ceiling nor floor” on the subject, while nuclear energy usually represents around 70% of electricity production, but only 63% in 2022 due to the shutdowns of several reactors for corrosion.