Ophelie Artaud
modified to
11:44 a.m., September 18, 2022
François Bayrou, boss of the Modem, High Commissioner for Planning, Secretary General of the National Council for Refoundation, close to the President, is the guest of the Grand Rendez-vous d’Europe1 / CNews / Les Échos this Sunday. Asked about the risk of an energy shortage this winter, he insisted on the need for nuclear power and pointed to the responsibility for the shutdown of various French power stations, such as that of Fessenheim, as “public opinion”, which was ” archi against nuclear” and that the governments followed.
“We are all jointly responsible”
According to him, the energy crisis is “one of the most important threats that we have in front of us for lack of energy production.” As High Commissioner for Planning, François Bayrou wrote a report on nuclear power, the measure of which was not taken by the executive. He points the finger at “all French executive officials over the past few decades” who have wanted to move towards stopping nuclear power. “We are all jointly responsible for the situations that we consider unbearable or cataclysmic”, insists the boss of the Modem.
“I’m going to say something weird: it’s not the rulers who govern the country, it’s public opinion that governs the country. They were who were totally against nuclear power. Everyone was against nuclear power, all forces politicians were against it, except me anyway,” he insisted. “I always thought it was the only energy that didn’t emit greenhouse gases and if you consider that the climate drama is accelerated by that, then that dictates a priority,” he said. -he adds.
“Restore the power plants we have”
For him, the drama of Fukushima in Japan has amplified this desire to phase out nuclear power and political leaders have followed the opinion of public opinion on the subject. As for the fact that Emmanuel Macron signed the closure of the Fessenheim power plant, François Bayrou recalls that “it was decided by the previous government”. “Why not recognize that the closure of Fessenheim was a mistake?” Asks Sonia Mabrouk. “The President of the Republic has reviewed his position and he has done well to take this new direction which greatly affects the future of the country because it will take tens of billions of investments to restore France to its place as leader in nuclear.”
New power stations which should see the light of day around “2035 for the first time”, according to the High Commissioner for Planning. “The first condition is to restore the plants we have to service,” he concludes.