French industry fears inertia on key energy, climate dossiers

Untreated dossiers like hydrogen, nuclear energy, and carbon capture are piling up on the desks of absent ministers, as France remains without a government since the July elections. Industry fears this governmental paralysis puts the country’s energy and climate goals and associated investment at risk.

“There will be planning without a doubt,” then-French Energy and Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire reassured a concerned energy sector in January.

Nine months later, France still has no energy and climate programming law (LPEC) – the essential framework covering all of France’s energy and climate targets.

While France submitted its high-level national energy-climate plan (NECP) to the European Commission in July, a legislative text like the LPEC is still needed to define the country’s carbon reduction trajectory and establish detailed energy transition targets by sector.

Without a national government, many issues that have been in the pipeline for months are now in limbo, including several sector-specific objectives.

Sector plans

This uncertainty particularly affects clean energy industries like hydrogen, where France is subject to fast-moving and intense international competition.

An updated hydrogen strategy, originally set for release in November 2023, was postponed multiple times and ultimately cancelled after the French National Assembly’s dissolution in June.

“The conditions have not yet been met to secure investors and manufacturers,” hydrogen industry stakeholders wrote at the end of July, expressing their concerns.

No strategic text is expected for renewable energy, but renewable manufacturers and producers need to “remain vigilant” about upcoming policy developments, advised Jules Nyssen, president of the French renewable energies union (SER), in an interview with GreenUnivers.

This includes the roll-out of renewable public support auctions, the integration of local content requirements into those auctions, as required by the EU’s Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA), and the announcement of the next round of sites for offshore wind developments, currently scheduled for the end of September.

Nuclear

France also remains without a definitive law to authorise the construction of six new nuclear reactors.

They consider the agreement insufficient to stabilise electricity prices, according to Luc-Benoit Cattin, co-chair of the energy commission of employer’s union Medef, and are calling for the deal’s review clause to be activated.

Industry

Electricity prices are central to France’s low-carbon reindustrialisation ambitions, launched with the ‘green industry’ law at the end of 2023.

At that time, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal hoped to supplement this law with a second text focusing on simplifying and speeding up permits for manufacturing sites.

“A number of measures agreed before the [National Assembly’s] dissolution with the right-wing [party Les républicains] are ready to be taken,” Charles Rodwell, an Ensemble pour la République (Renew) MP working on a ‘green industry 2’ law, told Euractiv.

At the same time, with the current French political situation, “the priority is to preserve the gains of the first green industry law, as well as the other policy achievements of the last seven years,” Rodwell added.

Implementing EU laws

France must also urgently transpose several recent EU directives into national law. The extension of the European carbon market to heating and transport is particularly pressing, with the deadline for transposition on 31 December 2024.

Budgets and future tech

In October, French parliamentarians are expected to negotiate the 2025 budget – if not delayed. Given France’s high public debt, cuts to energy and climate funding may be on the cards, as was the case in 2024.

This could hinder progress on emerging technologies, such as geothermal energy and carbon capture and storage, which, while supported by the EU’s NZIA, “have so far played a secondary role in public policies,” according to Cecil Coulet.