adds tweet from Jadot, Mélenchon and Zemmour
PARIS (awp/afp) – The environmentalist presidential candidate Yannick Jadot said on Sunday that he wanted to “renationalise” EDF by changing its status, by making it a public industrial and commercial establishment (EPIC).
“Electricity is a common good. EDF must be renationalized as an EPIC public establishment”, tweeted Yannick Jadot.
“What I want is for EDF to become a powerful, coherent strategic tool, at the service of the energy transition”, explained the MEP to the Grand Jury RTL-Le Figaro-LCI.
“When the State closes a nuclear power plant, we pay astronomical compensation to EDF and the shareholders. Today you have an EDF operator who, through government decisions, is in the process of committing hara-kiri so that Total and Engie are making record profits and paying astronomical dividends to their shareholders,” he said.
According to him, going from almost 84 to 100% of the capital of EDF for the State, it costs “around 5 to 6 billion euros, it’s much cheaper”.
EDF accumulates the setbacks while the government asked him to increase by 20% the volume of nuclear electricity sold at a reduced price to its competitors this year, in order to limit the increase in electricity prices for consumers.
The environmental candidate calls for a parliamentary commission of inquiry after the “absolute fiasco” of the EPR in Flamanville.
“No one, not a minister, not an EDF official is before a commission of inquiry to justify the 17 billion euros” overrun, according to him (20 billion according to the Court of Auditors, against 3.3 billion originally planned).
“Do you realize that 17 billion is almost the budget for higher education? and you have people who brew the billions of euros of public money without ever being accountable,” he lamented. .
EDF announced on Wednesday that the start-up of the new generation EPR nuclear reactor under construction in Flamanville (Manche) was postponed to 2023, due in particular to the Covid-19 pandemic, with a new additional cost of 300 million euros. .
Under construction since 2007, the EPR was initially to be commissioned in 2012, but the construction site was affected by numerous setbacks and additional costs.
EDF has also had to extend the shutdown of some of its nuclear reactors where corrosion problems have been identified and, in some cases, the shutdown will last until the end of the year.
At a meeting in Nantes, the rebellious candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon felt that it was necessary “to get out of nuclear power, not by ideology but because it is dangerous”.
Conversely, the far-right candidate Eric Zemmour reaffirmed on France 3 that he wanted to build 14 more nuclear reactors and felt that it was necessary to “get out of the regulated tariff”, believing that consumers were going to pay anyway limitation of electricity prices by taxes.
el/ib/cal