“I am proud to see our country be the first to respond to the US Inflation Reduction Act. » The Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, clearly announced the color by welcoming the adoption by the two assemblies of his text of law on industry, which was to be definitively voted on this Wednesday, October 11. And its color will be green… pale.
This law is the culmination of nearly a year’s work of consultations with the partners involved, businesses, associations, local and national elected officials. It therefore constitutes the French response to the American challenge of this law to reduce inflation, the main objective of which is to accelerate the reindustrialization of the United States.
We understand, just like its counterpart across the Atlantic, French law is essentially economic, rather than environmental, in aim, even if, in this case, the two are not incompatible. Few industrial sectors are promised a future as assured as that of technologies linked to the energy transition. When the President of the Republic announces that France will soon produce a million heat pumps on its soil, this creates vocations. Especially if we give them a little help.
Administrative deadlines
The two key measures of this text also directly respond to requests formulated in all tones by industrialists for a long time. The first consists of halving the administrative deadlines for opening a site, going from seventeen to nine months. Incidentally, a status of “major national interest” will even make it possible, in certain cases, to waive the environmental code to speed up procedures. A shame!
The other measure is a tax credit of up to 40% of the investment for battery, solar panel, wind turbine or heat pump factories. The thirteen other measures of the law − creation of a savings account, rehabilitation of sites, creation of a label, training, etc. − go in the same direction. This is not greenwashing, but a pole extended to an emerging green capitalism of which we understand more the economic effect, 23 billion investments and 40,000 expected jobs, than its contribution to the fight against global warming.