"Fessenheim should not be closed"

The moment is historic: it is during the night of Monday to Tuesday that the Fessenheim nuclear power plant, on the banks of the Rhine, will be definitively disconnected from the electricity network.

Yes and it is also a paradoxical moment: decided by De Gaulle and Pompidou, commissioned under Giscard in 1977, this plant is in perfect working order. It could have continued to operate for years. It contributes, like other plants, to the energy independence of our country. And it is thanks to industrial achievements of this type that France is one of the best students in the world in terms of CO2 emissions.

At a time when electric mobility is taking off and when the needs for the production of carbon-free energy are exploding, the Fessenheim judgment really appears for what it is: a purely political decision, taken by François Hollande to please environmentalists and that Emmanuel Macron did not have the courage to question.

Is the closure of Fessenheim a problem for the supply of electricity?

The organization that manages the network, RTE, has had time to prepare but does not rule out cuts this winter. Fessenheim was also connected to the German and Swiss networks and exported a lot of electricity: in Germany, this nuclear electricity is today replaced by electricity produced with coal. I would add that after Fessenheim, France plans to shut down 14 reactors in the coming years. Wind and solar are going to ramp up, it's a good thing, but we know that it's not enough.

The example to follow is the United Kingdom: plus one kilowatt produced with coal. Renewable energies, notably offshore wind, have completely replaced it. But at the same time, the United Kingdom is building EPRs and investing massively in nuclear power. Why ? To manage intermittency, that is to say the moments when renewables do not produce: when there is no wind or no sun. If we want more renewable energy - it is desirable - nuclear power is needed. And Fessenheim should not be closed.