After relying on the right to have its previous texts adopted, the majority is changing course this time with this bill which aims to make up for France’s delay in terms of renewable energies (EnR). A subject made hot by the news, marked by fears of power cuts in January.
During the examination in committee, “we took up proposals from deputies, in particular from the left and from LIOT (Liberté, Indépendants, Outre-mer et Territoires)”, argued the Minister for Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher. in the Sunday newspaper. “All the conditions are met for them to vote for this text,” she pleaded.
The executive, which only has a relative majority at the Palais Bourbon, invokes the experience of the “compromise” found in the Senate, where the text was widely adopted with the support of the right.
“I have confidence in the national representation and I see that a fairly broad agreement has been found in the Senate. So I am confident”, assured Parisian Emmanuel Macron on Saturday.
The Head of State has set the challenges, by 2050: the tenfold increase in solar energy production capacity to exceed 100 gigawatts (GW) and the deployment of 50 offshore wind farms to reach 40 GW .
For the time being, solar and wind represent only 19.3% of gross final energy consumption, already below the target set for 2020 of 23%, and France is still too dependent on energy imported fossils.
But in the Assembly, the LR deputies intend to reintroduce measures which the Senate has partly renounced: a right of veto for mayors on new projects, as well as the prohibition of wind turbines at sea less than 40 kilometers from the coast.
“Seeing the LRs of the Assembly go against the LRs of the Senate, it’s always surprising”, squeaks the Renaissance rapporteur Pierre Cazeneuve to AFP.
Deploring the “short-termist reading” and the “red lines” of the LRs, Mr. Cazeneuve believes that their strategy will be difficult to defend because “it is a subject of energy sovereignty, purchasing power, jobs and industries”.
The RN also wants to challenge the text, as opposed to wind turbines, “intermittent energies which make us dependent on the weather in addition to being dependent on other countries”, accuses MP Pierre Meurin.
– Benevolence on the left? –
On the left, the Socialists have already expressed their “rather benevolent” look and the environmentalists should not vote against, even if they affirm that the bill “is still largely insufficient”.
As a sign of pledge, Ms. Pannier-Runacher ensures to join them in their desire to use “to the maximum the areas already artificialized to install renewable energies: roofs, car parks, along the rail and river tracks…”
“And we are working on the establishment of an EnR mediator, proposed by environmentalists”, further argued the minister.
The rebels deplore them for being “far from the text of ecological planning and popular ecology that the country needs”.
The review in committee was marked by the deletion of a key article aimed at limiting certain legal remedies against renewable energy projects. The executive intends to reintroduce this article 4.
Green deputies, LR or RN see it as a threat to “biodiversity”, which the presidential camp disputes, which claims to want to avoid “litigation which does not succeed”.
Often technical, this bill addresses a battery of subjects including agrivoltaism, that is to say the installation of solar panels on agricultural land, with a balance to be found between energy and food sovereignty.
On the NGO side, WWF calls for “going beyond partisan postures” to “find an agreement”. The wind power sector for its part urged the deputies on Saturday to amend the text “significantly” to “allow France to meet its own energy needs”.