🚨️ Energy: the Senate approves its programming law again, despite government discord

Paris, July 8, 2025 (AFP) - On Tuesday, the Senate again approved a law on France's energy future activating a massive relaunch of nuclear power, supposed to help the executive finalize its multi-annual energy program (PPE) “before the end of summer” “before the end of summer”, despite recent governmental differences on renewable energies.

The bill of the senator Les Républicains Daniel Gremillet (Vosges) was adopted overnight by 221 votes against 24, in second reading. She must now return to the National Assembly at the end of September, where the inaugural debates on this text were already very chaotic, leading to its rejection at the first reading at the end of June.

Beyond the adoption of this text, which was beyond any doubt in the Upper House, which initiated it, the debates in the Senate have above all brought back to the table the fighting of the last few days.

The government coalition is in fact weakened by the frontal opposition between the Macronist camp and the right, since the boss of the Republicans (LR) - and Minister of the Interior - Bruno Retailleau gave an op-ed in Le Figaro in which he pleaded for the end of “public subsidies” for wind power and photovoltaic power.

“A forum whose findings and recommendations I deplore in many respects”, hammered the Minister of Industry Marc Ferracci (Renaissance) before the senators, assuring that “some renewable energies are very competitive”.

He defends “a balanced energy mix combining the power of nuclear power and the potential of renewable energies”... Two pillars that appear well in the text examined in Parliament.

14 new reactors

For its part, the LR group, the main force in the Senate, worked to explain that its vision was not incompatible with that of Bruno Retailleau, who is also the co-author of the text debated in the Senate.

“There is absolutely no contradiction, because the financing of renewable energies falls under the finance bill. This is where choices will have to be made,” insisted Senator LR Alain Cadec.

But, a sign that the debate is far from being settled on the right, the president LR of Île-de-France Valérie Pécresse unveiled a different position from Mr. Retailleau, in a contribution published by La Tribune on Sunday where she castigated “the sterile war” reopened between nuclear and renewable energies.

The left did not fail to engage in this breach, lambasting these dissensions as well as the absence of a financial component in this programmatic law, which was debated without an impact study or opinion from the Council of State.

“What will be the impacts of this law on electricity prices? On the necessary amount of public investments? On our climate trajectory? On our sovereignty? We don't know anything about it. It is irresponsible,” said the ecologist Yannick Jadot. Environmentalists voted against, socialists and communists abstained.

The senatorial majority nevertheless defends its vision, which it considers “balanced”: on the one hand a massive revival of nuclear power, including the construction of 14 new reactors; on the other hand, objectives for the development of renewable energies with, by 2030, a carbon-free energy share of at least 58% of energy consumption in France, against around 40% currently.

This architecture was the subject of negotiations between the government, senators and deputies of the former presidential majority, to the point of reaching almost consensus.

No moratorium

In any case, the moratorium on wind and solar energies, which ignited the powder in the National Assembly, convincing the groups of the former Macronist majority to vote against the entire text, is no longer current: it can no longer be debated because of the rules of parliamentary procedure.

The Senate was not in favor of it anyway, even though it voted for a measure specifying the need to “favour the renewal of existing installations” rather than the implementation of new projects.

The senators also called for the government to wait for the final adoption of this law to finalize its multi-annual energy programming (PPE), the energy trajectory that it intends to publish soon by decree.

The decree will be published “before the end of summer”, however assured Mr. Ferracci... A deadline incompatible with the second reading of the text by the deputies at the end of September, then the holding of a joint joint committee expected in mid-October to lead to a joint drafting between the two chambers of Parliament.

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