The bakers’ crisis of winter 2022 was a revelation. By exposing the effects of the surge in electricity prices on small local businesses, it has made visible dysfunctions hitherto known only to experts: the temporary unavailability of French nuclear power plants, which forced the France to import electricity for a few months, but above all the curious system of fixing the price on the European market, indexed to that of electricity produced from gas, much higher than that of energy from nuclear French. A system “badly done” And ” absurd “, had released Emmanuel Macron in front of the bakers. Worthy of Shadoks even, he had admitted a few months earlier.
“We will resume control of our electricity prices at French and European level by the end of the year”, announced the Head of State against all expectations, during his speech on ecological planning on September 25, in a barely veiled allusion to the Brexit slogan, “take back control” (“take back control”). A small sentence with considerable impact. After two years of soaring energy prices, France says it is ready to take on a national rather than European mechanism.
The issue is still the same – competitiveness – but this now requires sovereignty, even for a president whose adherence to the European project is one of the strongest political markers, and who until then favored the path of negotiation at twenty-seven. Just a year ago, Emmanuel Macron said to himself “very confident” on the chances of reaching a European agreement. But time is running out. Cheap American energy attracts businesses and threatens the country’s reindustrialization, its great project. And the European elections are approaching.
Germany’s reluctance
All winter, the oppositions have called on the government to unilaterally withdraw from the European electricity market to regain control of prices, or to negotiate an exemption following the example of Spain and Portugal. Designed to guarantee the supply of European countries, this market has in fact forced France for two years to pay a high price for energy produced at low cost, depriving it of the benefits of its nuclear fleet which nevertheless represents 70% of its production. . “Macron trapped himself by announcing a major electricity reform which will not exist, warns National Rally MP (RN, Somme) Jean-Philippe Tanguy. This will be a subject of the European campaign this winter. He has been promising reform for a year and a half, Bruno Le Maire was talking about it in 2022.”
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