End of EDF cuts: the Abbé Pierre Foundation calls on other suppliers to follow

Europe 1 with AFP 6:44 p.m., November 12, 2021

The Abbé Pierre Foundation on Friday welcomed EDF's decision to end all year round power cuts for unpaid bills, calling on other operators to follow this example before enshrining this principle in law.

"The other operators must follow"

"We are obviously very happy" but, "now we need the other operators to follow suit, we hope so, and also that, as for the water cuts which were repealed in 2013, we go at one point through the law to protect all households from these practices that are considered unworthy, "Christophe Robert, the Foundation's delegate general, told AFP. EDF, which dominates the French market, has announced that it will stop asking for electricity to be cut for individuals with unpaid bills, all year round and not just during the winter break. Instead, the incumbent supplier will request a power limitation.

"It just allows temporarily, the time to find another solution, to open aid that we can have in the departments, the local communities, not to turn off the light, to recharge his cell phone", explained Christophe Robert. .

The Foundation had recently launched a campaign for the year-round abolition of electricity cuts, "cruel social punishment", and to replace it with a reduction in power.

"No 'disempowerment' of the consumer"

This does not offer "normal comfort" and therefore does not participate "in any way in any 'disresponsibility' of the consumer, or in an increase in unpaid bills," she underlines.

A small operator, Plüm Energie, had already embarked on this approach.

Engie says that he is experimenting with it and working "to deploy this method more massively from next spring".

"Beyond this good news today, we must go further", pleaded Christophe Robert: "behind, we must also double the energy check but also renovate all the thermal strainers within the most short possible ".