The subject is sensitive at the top of the state. France’s electricity supply, undermined by EDF’s difficulties in restarting all its nuclear reactors, is worrying individuals and professionals. And the last outing of the Enedis spokesperson should not calm the executive. Invited on BFM-TV on Monday, Laurent Méric explained that “people who are at high vital risk are not among the priority customers defined by the prefectures”.
Clearly, in the event of load shedding, customers on respirators will be affected by power outages. A statement that infuriates Emmanuel Macron, who judges that the energy supplier does not have to hold this kind of speech.
The president steps up
Because for the President of the Republic, the situation does not lend itself to this type of scenario. Since this weekend, the latter has multiplied the interventions in the press to “call for calm”, and “stop scaring people with absurd scenarios, like those which I have heard in recent hours”.
Annoyed, the latter therefore asked all his ministers to occupy the field, like Elisabeth Borne who wanted to be reassuring on the subject during the session of questions to the government at the National Assembly, this Tuesday . “Our hospitals will always be supplied with electricity and sick people at home will always be taken care of”, she hammered in front of the deputies.
The guilty government?
But nevertheless, the elected representatives of the opposition accuse the executive of having itself spread fear through the circular sent last week to the prefects, and which specifically provides for load shedding measures in the event of insufficient electricity. An accusation that embarrasses the government.
Thus, a relative of Emmanuel Macron concedes in private that “this circular, which therefore envisages the worst scenario, was indeed likely to provoke statements like that of the spokesperson for Enedis”.