The surge in energy prices is partly due to the strong recovery in post-Covid economic activity. Beyond the current crisis, the question of taxation will have to arise, according to Jean-François Carenco, the president of the Energy Regulatory Commission, an independent administrative authority responsible for overseeing the electricity and gas markets. in France.
Despite its nuclear fleet, France is suffering from the surge in gas abroad. Why does the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, consider the European electricity market to be “aberrant” and “obsolete”? What do you think ?
This is an error in terms. I am against binary reasoning. Europe first allows France to export our nuclear electricity. This is a considerable source of income. Then, the European interconnection allows security of supply: it is essential for France forty days a year. Without the European network, around 20 gas-fired power stations would have to be built in the country.
But the market is also pushing the French population to pay more for their energy …
First, because of the market, we paid less for a long time. But let’s talk about electricity prices in France: for citizens who are still at regulated prices, they have increased by 2% this year, the level of inflation. It is a lie to say that electricity is soaring for the individual. And this will not be the case in 2022, since the government has committed to an increase of 4% maximum in this global crisis.
Without a price freeze, the government expected a jump of around 12% for the regulated electricity tariff in February 2022. As for gas, it has already increased by almost half since the start of the period. year, until the frost announced for November.
First, the price of gas was at a very low level at the end of 2020. But it is true that a very strong increase has been observed since July, almost 40%. This crisis clearly favors electric heating and gives morale to gas advocates. Some people start to think to themselves, “If gas goes up this way, ultimately those who advise not to do it may not be wrong.”
In October, in his annual barometer, the national energy mediator underlined a “worrying” situation of energy poverty in the population. Should this be seen as a failure to open up the market to competition in 2007?
That there are people in difficulty is a truth. But it is not the price of energy, at least not that of those heated by electricity, which is solely responsible. To say that, because of energy poverty, we have to change the market system, I find that not intellectually honest. Is it the price of energy that puts you in precariousness, or is it the price of rents, the price of everything that is increasing?
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