- Emmanuelle Wargon came to Marseille to settle the thorny issue of the coal power plant.
- Emmanuel Macron has indeed committed to closing it in 2022.
- But no concrete project is emerging for the future of this power plant, two years before the deadline.
What to do with the Gardanne coal-fired power station in the Bouches-du-Rhône? Emmanuel Macron promised it, and he will stick to it: in 2022, this site should be a memory of the past, that of an industry deemed too polluting because of its CO2 emissions. But two years before the announced closure, in a few months, no concrete plan has been put on the table, not even by the government.
The Secretary of State to the Minister of Ecological and Inclusive Transition, Emmanuelle Wargon, however made the trip to Marseille specially, this Thursday, in the prefecture, to settle this thorny question. The minister is completing a “tour de France” of coal-fired power plants, with specific announcements for three of the four French sites still in operation. There, an envelope of 250 million euros, here a closure definitively pushed back with a well defined calendar.
A factory on strike for a year
But in Gardanne, no project approved. The situation seems blocked, and different avenues for reconversion of the site are defended tooth and nail and nail by the unions, elected officials or environmental collectives. Tensions around the future of the plant remain alive, as evidenced by the last minute request by some elected officials to exclude journalists from their meeting with the Secretary of State on Thursday, however initially open to the press to better demonstrate State action and the will of the government to honor this electoral promise…
Outside the prefecture, the CGT union representatives of the 250 employees of the Gardanne coal-fired power plant initially refused to participate in this meeting. On strike since December 2018, these employees oppose this closure, and are pushing for an extension with CO2 capture for "clean coal", a process not yet developed at the moment and controversial. According to a press release from the management of GazelEnergie, owned by the power station, the situation remains complicated, to the point that the site "has hardly produced electricity for a year. "
The CGT proposals studied
After accepting an interview on the sidelines of the meeting, the union nevertheless obtained a commitment from the Secretary of State: their proposals will be the subject of a feasibility study, the cost of which, of 120,000 euros, will be fully taken supported by the State and the Caisse des Dépôts.
And otherwise ? And if not, not much, by the admission of the Secretary of State, who obtained, after an hour of debate with elected officials, the signing not of a land contract, but of a "framework document" which lists a series of projects for Gardanne and its surroundings, ranging from the construction of a sawmill to the development of businesses around "soft mobility".
"It is not precise enough yet"
"We are at a stage which is an orientation document, so it is not precise enough yet, I agree with you on this point, recognizes Emmanuelle Wargon. We have given ourselves four, five months, between now and the summer, to arrive at a specific territory project, in which you have actions, operators, financial amounts and timetables. This is the work we have to do. It is a job that must be done with elected officials. It took a little longer here than on other sites. But there, it is engaged. This is why I am signing this interim document. It symbolizes the collective will to move from orientations to concrete actions. "
But already, the small step conceded by Emmanuelle Wargon with the CGT worries environmental associations. "It is normal that there are phases of discussion with the unions," says Luc Le Mouel, for FNE Paca. We understand that at some point, he releases weight. But the social is as important as the ecology. With the project looming, I am afraid that it will be social and little ecology… ”
In the meantime, the CGT says it wants to continue the strike. "If there are very clear gestures, that there is not an employee who will be dismissed, an industrial project signed by this government and millions of investment put on the table, we are able to suspend the movement, says Nadir Hadjali, CGT assistant secretary at the plant. This is not the case today. There are many questions that remain unclear. "
Society
Bouches-du-Rhône: After two months on strike, the future of the Gardanne coal-fired power plant remains unclear
Planet
Bouches-du-Rhône: Gardanne, the epicenter of the challenges of ecological transition
- Employment
- Coal
- power plant