Emmanuel Macron had set the course for the start of the school year in September. France must go “twice as fast” on the deployment of renewable projects, had judged the Head of State. At a time when the energy crisis is generating fears of power cuts this winter in France, the government wants to move forward quickly. The renewable energy bill, which arrives in the National Assembly on Monday 5 December, must provide the administrative tools to promote, among other things, the development of wind and solar energy in the territory.
But, if it was passed in the Senate on 5 November by the right and center majority, the text will have more difficulty convincing in the Assembly, where the presidential camp does not have an absolute majority. Here are the main sticking points, left and right.
LR wants veto power for mayors on wind turbines
LR senators voted for the text, but LR deputies are preparing to reject it in large part. Among the disagreements is the leeway given to the city council to oppose a wind project. The LR deputies had tabled an amendment to guarantee a right of veto to the mayors, but, in the Senate, the government managed to make it a more general device, specifies Public Senate. Instead of obtaining a right of veto, municipalities will be able to define the geographical areas in which they authorize the installation of wind turbines. This device, which the government does not want to give up, does not however convince the leader of the LRs in the Assembly, Olivier Marleix.
“What this text will mainly relaunch is the German wind turbine and the Chinese photovoltaic panel”, he said in the JDDdenouncing “miles of landscape disfigured by wind turbines” in Germany. As it stands, the MP is therefore not calling for a vote on the text, which “going off pretty badly”according to him. “Seeing the LRs of the Assembly go against the LRs of the Senate, it’s always surprising”squeaks Renaissance rapporteur Pierre Cazeneuve to AFP.
Another sticking point with the executive : the installation distance of wind turbines at sea, which LR would like to exclude at less than 40 km from the coast. Even if the Senate has abandoned this provision, the LR group wants to reintroduce it into the text. Finally, Olivier Marleix is opposed to the installation of photovoltaic panel roofs above car parks with more than 80 spaces and defends other sources of energy, such as green hydrogen or geothermal energy, neglected according to him by the executive.
For its part, the RN is also opposed to the text. With AFP, the deputy Pierre Meurin describes wind turbines as“intermittent energies that make us dependent on the weather in addition to being dependent on other countries”.
Within the Nupes, environmentalists and socialists set their conditions
To face the opposition of the line, the government turns more towards the elected officials of Nupes, who benefit from it to pose their conditions. “This is the first time that there is a real discussion, and not just a staging of discussions”said the president of the environmental group, Cyrielle Chatelain, to World. “The government has no choice, it is obliged to do with us if it wants its law to be adopted”further advances the ecologist deputy Charles Fournier to Mediapart.
Discussions also seem to be progressing with the Socialist Party. “We we are ready to vote on this text”, assures Boris Vallaud, the president of the PS group in the Assembly, in the HuffPostwith two prerequisites : “regulate the deployment of the solar panels on farmland” and “the distribution of value” renewable projects in the territories.
The government claims to take into account the demands of the Green and Socialist deputies. The Minister for Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, assured in the JDD join them in their desire to use “to the maximum the areas already artificialized to install renewable energies [énergies renouvelables] : roofs, car parks, along the railway and river routes…” “And we are working on setting up a mediator for renewable energies, proposed by ecologists”further argued the minister.
But, within Nupes, the Communists are opposed to this text and denounce, following the example of Senator Fabien Gay on Public Senate, a stranglehold of the private sector on the energy market. The LFI group also castigates a project “which primarily aims to facilitate the business of private promoters”. The executive hopes to obtain at least abstention from LFI in order to be able to pass the text, according to an elected representative of the majority who has followed the course of the law.
The possible reintroduction of the article 4 tenses the oppositions
An article focused attention against the project, on the left as well as on the far right : the article 4. It provides for recognition of “imperative reason of overriding public interest” for renewable projects. This provision limits the possibility of legal recourse and worries elected officials on all sides. It was also deleted when the text was examined by the Sustainable Development Committee.
According the Worldthe government will present a rewrite of this article. “The environmentalists and LFI are there facing their own paradox : they want 100% renewable energy, but they don’t always want to give themselves the means to move towards this objective”denounces the rapporteur of the text and Renaissance deputy, Pierre Cazeneuve, in The world. Several personalities also regret that the environmental group spoke out against this article, in a column published by Release. “Renewable energies are indeed ‘of major public interest'”they say.
The executive still shows his confidence. During the review in committee, “we have taken up proposals from deputies, in particular from the left and from LIOT (Freedom, Independents, Overseas and Territories)”argued Agnès Pannier-Runacher in The JDD. “All the conditions are met for them to vote for this text”, she pleaded. The executive, which only has a relative majority in the Palais Bourbon, invokes the experience of the “compromise” found in the Senate, where the text was widely adopted with support from the right. “I have confidence in the national representation and I see that a fairly broad agreement has been reached in the Senate. So I am confident”assured Emmanuel Macron on Saturday at Parisian.
