VSow did France get here? Struck by soaring gas and oil prices, faced with the need to accelerate the ecological transition to combat the effects of climate change, the country has discovered in recent months with amazement its extreme vulnerability in terms of energy. The awakening is painful, but relativizing the difficulties and evading responsibilities would only aggravate a situation which has continued to deteriorate over the years. From this point of view, the commission of inquiry of the National Assembly “aimed at establishing the reasons for France’s loss of sovereignty and energy independence” has done a salutary job, the main fault of which is to intervene only belatedly.
The report of this commission, presented Thursday, April 6, is the result of dozens of hearings of experts, officials of the nuclear industry, regulators, ministers and even two former presidents of the Republic. The report is of an unquestionable severity. The six months of hearings have shed harsh light on years of mistakes, drifts, renunciations, lack of political courage coupled with political calculations which resulted in a collective failure, from which we should draw the most the lessons quickly.
To achieve this national introspection, it took until 2022, annus horribilis during which half of the nuclear power plant fleet was shut down both for maintenance constraints and to repair design flaws in some reactors, leaving the threat of untimely power cuts hanging over. At the end of the day, an explosion in electricity imports, while France was historically an exporter, and nearly 18 billion euros in losses for EDF.
A certain irresponsibility
This shocking episode is only the tip of the iceberg. Beyond the dysfunctions of the nuclear sector, it is the way of thinking about our energy mix that has failed. Disproportionate dependence on imported fossil fuels, procrastination on renewable energies, little attention paid to sobriety: everything has contributed to underestimating our electricity needs and running out of “long-term reflection on our industrial and climate ambitions”says the report.
To this lack of vision was added a certain irresponsibility in decision-making. These depended more on opinion polls, electoral agreements or ideological a priori, whether pro- or anti-nuclear, without taking into account our real energy needs, as well as our industrial and financial capacity to support them. . The report dwells less on the responsibilities of the nuclear industry itself in questionable industrial choices, which are also its own.
It is not a question of maintaining an illusory nostalgia for the Messmer plan, which, in 1974, succeeded in building the bulk of our nuclear fleet in record time. Since then, everything has changed, both the transparency requirements of society, our energy needs, and the environmental challenges that we must solve.
The urgency of the situation should not, however, lead to rushing. France must adopt a long-term energy program, based on credible and democratically shared climate, energy and industrial objectives. Whether it is energy production or the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, this work remains to be done to turn the page on the current fiasco.