Le 1er February, French consumers will once again see their electricity bills increase by 10%. Whether they are at regulated prices or not, everyone will suffer this unfair and incomprehensible increase. However, contrary to what certain political leaders continue to assert, the European Union is in no way responsible for this increase in our electricity bills. This is indeed a French decision.
To no longer depend on fossil fuels and fight against climate change, our societies will have to electrify massively, and electricity consumption will automatically increase. Therefore, how can we invite consumers to equip themselves with an electric vehicle or a heat pump, how can we encourage our industries to electrify and switch to hydrogen produced from electricity if prices increase?
While the lull finally arrived on the European electricity markets and, in France, electricity prices excluding taxes were expected to fall in 2024 then in 2025 according to calculations by the Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE), the French government knowingly chose to reestablish an internal tax, the internal tax on final consumption of electricity (TICFE), without any strengthening of aid measures being planned.
A choice of the French government
Added to this decision is the unfair and unacceptable refusal to protect consumers from further price increases in the medium term. The agreement voted on the European reform of electricity markets nevertheless gave France the possibility of selling its nuclear electricity at a fixed price – disconnected from market prices – close to production costs, with recourse to what These are called “contracts for difference” (CfD).
But, here again, the government made another choice: that of the all-market, inviting both EDF to sell all of its nuclear electricity on the European market and consumers to sign longer contracts, hoping that those -these can smooth out market price variations over time.
Once again, this preference for the all-market is not a figure imposed by Europe: the French government has preferred not to regulate the prices of its nuclear electricity even though European texts allow it to do so. Thus, from 2026, French nuclear electricity will be completely deregulated and the French will be exposed to wholesale market prices, most of the time disconnected from the real costs of the electricity system.
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