The text divides and embarrasses.

This Wednesday, he finds himself before the Senate.

The upper house, with a majority on the right, is working on the first reading of the bill to accelerate renewable energies (EnR) carried by the Minister for Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher.

The discussion in the hemicycle of the Luxembourg Palace should start at the end of the day and continue until Friday.

In the midst of the energy crisis, this text aims to make France catch up on its great delay in renewable energies by simplifying administrative procedures and accelerating the development of solar energy and wind power at sea. It passed the heading from the commission to the chamber of territories, but with consequent modifications.

The question of the mayors' veto

The most controversial is the addition of a form of veto right given to mayors on the establishment of facilities, including for municipalities “directly impacted in terms of visibility by the project”.

Agnès Pannier-Runacher said Wednesday on France Inter that she would be "attentive or vigilant" in relation to this provision.

"Mayors are not asking for it," she added.

With shared political groups, the game looks tight.

The Minister consulted very widely upstream, in order to also prepare for the passage of the text before the National Assembly, from December 5.

"It will be difficult to agree" with the government, warned the leader of the LR deputies, Olivier Marleix.

For the rapporteur for the Senate, Didier Mandelli (LR), “for this bill to be voted on, we really have to leave the place that suits local elected officials”.

“Cutting” decisions

The political calendar adds to the difficulty: congress of mayors from November 22 to 24, strategic for a Senate which will be half renewed in the fall of 2023;

and Congress of Republicans in early December, where the boss of senators LR Bruno Retailleau is a candidate for the presidency of the party.

"Politically, it's very difficult for the opposition not to vote for this text," said a government source.

In the Assembly, “we are not going to use 49.3, we will refer the opposition to their double discourse”, we add.

The EnR bill is the first part of a triptych.

A bill to facilitate the construction of six new nuclear reactors is presented precisely this Wednesday in the Council of Ministers.

In the second half of 2023, a programming law on energy and climate will complete the package.

On the form, Bruno Retailleau deplores that the Parliament has to decide "by cutting", without having "a general framework".

"Wind Turbine Walls"

The text is divided into major sections: simplification of administrative procedures to reduce project deployment time;

acceleration of the development of solar energy and offshore wind;

improving the local acceptability of projects.

On the initiative of the rapporteur, the senators introduced “a territorial planning device” in which the mayors would be the first “in the maneuver” to define areas suitable for the establishment of facilities.

Above all, they would have the power to "develop" a project, then in a second step, "to say yes or no" to its implementation.

With regard to offshore wind power, the rapporteur wishes to give priority to installation areas located at a minimum distance of 40 km from the shore, another controversial point.

"There is no question of erecting walls of wind turbines visible from our coasts", warned Bruno Retailleau.

Multiply solar energy by ten

According to environmentalist Ronan Dantec, LR is divided between “Republicans of territorial populism and Republicans of industrial development”.

For environmentalists, the "right of veto" of mayors is an unacceptable "red line".

"The Senate will make posture, but it will jump to the Assembly," he predicts.

"With whom does the government want to build" this text of law, asks for her part the leader of the ecologist deputies, Cyrielle Chatelain.

The vote of the left is not acquired.

The objective set by President Emmanuel Macron for 2050 is to multiply by ten the production capacity of solar energy to exceed 100 GW and to deploy 50 wind farms at sea to reach 40 GW.

Planet

Council of Ministers: A bill to speed up nuclear power unveiled on Wednesday

Planet

Climate: The global peak of CO2 emissions should be reached in 2025

  • Planet

  • Energetic transition

  • Renewable energies

  • Solar energy

  • Wind turbine