Ecological planning: French President Emmanuel Macron unveils his objectives

After several postponements, Emmanuel Macron presented Monday, September 25, the main axes of "ecological planning" which he intends to make a marker of his five-year term, despite an environmental balance deemed so far insufficient.

French President Emmanuel Macron speaks at the opening of a special climate meeting at the Élysée Palace in Paris, September 25, 2023. © Michel Euler / Reuters

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This was one of French President Emmanuel Macron's campaign promises in 2017, then running for re-election. "The five-year term will be ecological or will not be," he claimed. Emmanuel Macron therefore wanted to concretize this promise this Monday, September 25 with the presentation of his project of "ecological planning". For the second time, the French President convened this Monday afternoon, September 25, the Ecological Planning Council created after his re-election, with Elisabeth Borne and the ministers concerned. His concluding speech was broadcast.

Those who were waiting for tables, indicating precisely how much to decarbonize each sector and how to do it will still have to wait. This green planning, which is supposed to be the roadmap for the transformation of the France should be seen as a framework that sets overall objectives sector by sector. But on how to achieve them, all this is referred to later texts, such as the multiannual energy programming expected next month. The envelope dedicated to financing increases by 7 billion per year, from 33 to 40 billion dedicated to the ecological transition.

The France's objective is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030% in France by 55 compared to 1990. It is necessary to "go twice as fast", reaffirmed Emmanuel Macron, while the decline in emissions of his first five-year term was helped by the economic slowdown caused by Covid. "One objective that is absolutely fundamental in this decarbonization is the exit of coal," the president said. The latter must be effective on 1 January 2027. Presented as the flagship measure, coal accounts for only 3% of the energy consumed in the country – oil and gas about 43%. Above all, the France was initially supposed to leave last year before a retreat of the executive.

Some concrete measures

The president made some new announcements, such as an immediate envelope of 700 million euros from the State to start developing better regional transport networks and thus build 13 metropolitan RER, more than the ten projects initially envisaged. These RER projects "will give rise to planning" and financing under the State-regional plan contracts to be signed in October, he said. "This will also launch projects for our rail industry and the jobs that go with it," the president promised. Emmanuel Macron said that these projects would cost a total of 10 billion euros.

While he had confirmed the day before to renounce to ban gas boilers so as not to leave the French in rural areas "without solutions", Emmanuel Macron has also set the goal of one million heat pumps by the end of the five-year term, tripling the current level, as part of ecological planning. Above all, he addressed a politically very sensitive point in this autumn dominated by inflation and the decline in purchasing power: the price of electricity.

The president promised to announce in October a resumption of "control of the price of our electricity" so that it is "sustainable both for our businesses and for our households", in a context of inflation and energy prices still high. While a battle of figures opposes the renationalized company EDF and the State on the future regulation of electricity, the president wants prices that are "compatible" with the requirements of "competitiveness" and give "visibility to both households and our industrialists".

Decarbonising 50 industrial sites that emit the most CO2

Referring to an "ecology that creates economic value", he stressed the need to "develop industrial sectors on our soil and to have a strategy of made in Europe" to put an end to "our dependence" on fossil fuels, the price of which he estimated at "120 billion euros per year" for the France.

In this context, the decarbonization of the 50 industrial sites that emit the most CO2, announced a year ago, should reduce industrial emissions by 45% by 2030, said Emmanuel Macron. The plans with the major industrialists of the steel industry, chemicals or cement that are part of it "will be signed at the end of October, beginning of November" for all of them, he said. They will then be extended to SMEs. They plan massive investments to make their production methods less polluting or to capture carbon whose production cannot be avoided.

The president also confirmed "a large inventory of mineral resources" in France, because they are "necessary for the ecological transition", especially to find metals powering electric batteries. "We must have an accurate map of the lithium and cobalt resources that are on our territory," said the president, adding that it would also be necessary to "look precisely at the natural hydrogen deposits that could play a major role in producing this energy of the future."

On two major industrial projects, industrial hydrogen and carbon sequestration, the president estimated that the future multi-year law on higher education and research would be able to help implementation. "A consultation is underway" on CO2 sequestration, and "at the end, we must be able to develop at least one site in France, again to reduce our dependence on the outside," Macron said.

Same idea of independence for the electric car. "We will have at least one million electric cars produced by 2027 on the soil of France", which will export electric batteries by 2027, he recalled.

(

And with AFP)

" READ ALSO Ecological planning: French President Emmanuel Macron faces the "challenge of the century"

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• Emmanuel Macron
• French politics
• Environment
• Climate
• Climate change
• France
• Elisabeth Borne