The intersyndicale of the Electricité de France group (EDF) won a first showdown against the “Hercules” project of the management and the government. In 2021, she obtained the suspension of this plan synonymous, according to her, with a future dismantling of the company – of which the State remains the main shareholder. But here she is, now, grappling with another concern.
On Wednesday January 26, the four representative unions (CGT, CFE-CGC, CFDT and FO) are all calling for a strike to say “stop the destruction of EDF and the public service”. Here, the challenge is aimed at the measures planned by the government to contain the increase in the “blue tariff” for electricity, to which the majority of French households have subscribed. This will be the second day of strike for some employees, the day after the mobilization organized on Tuesday, January 25, by the CGT for a “immediate increase in wages and pensions” miners and energy companies.
At the end of September 2021, the executive promised to limit the regulated electricity sales tariff to + 4% in February. To achieve this, he was already counting on doing without tax revenue from the domestic tax on final electricity consumption.
“EDF continues to bear industrial risks”
Three months before the presidential election, the prices of the electricity market having increased more than expected, the State decided on an additional measure. He still excludes lowering another tax, the VAT, but he plans to force EDF to sell off even more nuclear electricity for the benefit of competing suppliers – which, in theory, will then be supposed to pass on the bill to households. It will be 120 terawatt hours (TWh) this year, instead of 100 TWh in previous years, the government announced on January 13, although it has not yet published a decree or order.
“This constitutes a spoliation and an unacceptable weakening of Electricité de France, a public operator”, denounce the unions in a letter sent on Tuesday to Bruno Le Maire, Minister of the Economy, Finance and Recovery. In a previous letter, on January 14, the union representatives sitting on the company’s board of directors asked “up to the State shareholder to fully compensate the cost of the provisional support requested from EDF. The EDF company does not have, in its corporate purpose, the mission of relaxing a politically sensitive subject for the time to span a presidential election”.
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