After having decreed “the end of abundance” and called for “sobriety”, Emmanuel Macron met, this Friday, September 2, an unprecedented Defense Council to take stock of the supply of gas and electricity and examine the scenarios to avoid shortages. But faced with ever-increasing bills, many municipalities are already organizing to save money.
In Strasbourg, where the Eurometropolis has declared that it wants to reduce its energy bill by 10%, several measures are on the table, including a cut in public lighting at night. “The effort will be immense, but the objective is achievable”, summarized at the microphone of France Bleu Alsace Syamak Agha Babaei, first deputy mayor of Strasbourg and vice-president of the Eurometropolis in charge of the budget and finances. Even the unmissable Christmas market in Strasbourg is in the sights of the municipality, which calls for sobriety. “We have to raise the debate. Nobody would understand today with this price of electricity, when there is a risk of load shedding for households, that we keep for example a Christmas tree that is illuminated every day, all the time and at all hours,” he said.
A measure also chosen by the Lille conurbation to lower its bills. At the microphone of France Bleu Nord, PS mayor Martine Aubry announced this Friday that the city would stop lighting public buildings at night, except in two emblematic squares in the center, and put certain fountains out of service. “As of Monday, the lighting in public buildings will be turned off, with the exception of the Grand-Place and the Place de l’Opéra – i.e. a saving in annual energy consumption of around 170,000 KW” specified the town hall of Lille in a press release.
In the columns of Le Parisien, Christophe Bouillon, president of the Association of small towns in France and mayor of Barentin (Seine-Maritime), also reflects on what measures to adopt. “We are not neglecting any track. My colleagues, like me, are looking for all the solutions. We have no more energy but we have ideas”. In his city of Seine-Maritime, he decided to switch schools to more economical wood heating instead of gas. In Brittany, the heating in high schools will drop a degree and drop to 19°C, the socialist president of the region, Loïg Chesnais-Girard, announced on Tuesday.
A similar measure has already been taken by the city of Saumur (Maine-et-Loire) on April 15. And that the property management of the city of Paris is also considering, if the situation continues to get tense, according to Le Parisien.
Instead of the usual day, many museums all over France will have to close their doors at least two days a week in order to contribute to the energy savings of their municipalities. This is for example the case of the city of Strasbourg. The same fate is reserved for four swimming pools around Montpellier. Since September 1, they will have to close one day a week, then a whole month in turn. By closing these energy-intensive structures, in particular to heat water, local authorities hope to limit damage and save nearly 300,000 euros.
More reckless, the mayor of a small town of 13,000 inhabitants in the Oise threatened not to pay the city’s energy bill, which according to his calculations risks going from 600,000 to 2.5 million euros in 2023. Asked about this on France Inter, this Thursday, September 1, Élisabeth Borne considered that this was a “bad example”, recalling the exceptional endowment of 430 million euros – effective in the spring of 2023 – released to help municipalities in difficulty. For eligible municipalities, the State will offset by half the increase in expenditure caused by the revaluation of the index point for civil servants and by 70% the increase in expenditure for energy and food.