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France's Multiannual Energy Programming: A Roadmap Without a Road or a Map
Classic French policymaking: grandiose rhetoric masking improvised arithmetic, ideological fudge, and a willful blindness to reality.
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So here we go again with France’s third Multiannual Energy Programming (PPE)—the nation’s grand energy roadmap for the next decade—desperately trying to square the circle between nuclear evangelists and renewable energy die-hards in yet another tiresome iteration of Macron’s infamous “at the same time” mantra.
On paper, this political tightrope walk looks seductive: balance the two camps, please everyone, and call it strategy. In reality, it’s a slapped-together mess, scribbled on the back of an envelope with zero serious foresight or rigorous impact assessment.
The new PPE commits to building six additional nuclear reactors by 2038, with a vague option for eight more. Incidentally, the eye-watering provisional price tag for those six—around €72.8 billion—still awaits proper auditing, finalization, and the obligatory blessing from Brussels under state aid rules. Let’s not forget the original ballpark figure was a mere €52 billion, and EDF, the public utility, is already drowning in debt. Brilliant planning, as always.
On the renewables side, things veer into pure fantasy. Photovoltaic capacity is supposed to leap from 22.7 GW in 2023 to 65 GW—and even 98 GW—by 2035. Offshore wind generation? It’s being turbocharged by a factor of fifteen, presumably to make up for onshore, which is wheezing along, with projects getting shot down left and right by local opposition and courts.
So yes, the great leap forward into weather-dependent energy is officially locked in—never mind that Germany, the former poster child and eager trailblazer for all this, is now sprinting in reverse. Never mind that blanketing the country with these scattershot installations demands massive grid reinforcements and connections, ballooning costs even further, not to mention secure supplies of critical raw materials. A fresh report from the European Court of Auditors (Special Report 04/2026) warns darkly of supply shortages that could—at best—delay these projects indefinitely.
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And here’s the kicker: by the time these hypothetical new nuclear reactors might finally flicker online, what will be left? The same grim fallback Germany now clings to—gas, anyone?
All this is hardly news; it’s exhaustively documented. Then there’s the looming horizon of social and environmental acceptability. Offshore wind farms sprouting along French coasts? Brace for massive backlash and barrages of lawsuits. At best, expect yet more endless delays, cancellations, and outright abandonments.
The government knows this perfectly well—after all, its own environment and energy ministries commissioned a major study through the French Biodiversity Office (OFB). The Migralion study aimed to map how birds and bats use marine space amid surging human offshore activity in the Gulf of Lion. Surprise, surprise: the findings hardly cheerlead for wind turbines. They reveal projects plonked squarely across major migratory flyways, right at cruising altitude for large birds.
No wonder the Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux (LPO)—an NGO veteran winner of court battles—is up in arms. Its president, Allain Bougrain Dubourg, didn’t mince words:
“The Migralion report confirm the reckless haste with which commercial wind power generation projects are rammed through by the State. While a similar study, Migratlane, remains underway for the Atlantic, Channel, and North Sea coasts, Emmanuel Macron saw fit to reiterate at La Rochelle’s Sea Economy Conference his determination to streamline offshore wind deployment there. Yet that stretch of coastline lies along the East Atlantic Flyway—one of the world’s most vital migration corridors for birds, protected under the AEWA international agreement.”
As offshore wind projects multiply like rabbits, their backers and the government stumble forward blindly, feet-first into the unknown. The ECUME working group’s findings on cumulative environmental impacts from marine renewables? Still unpublished. Feedback from pilot floating farms (Gruissan, Leucate, Faramans)? Crickets. Oceanographic impact studies? Woefully thin. As one investigating commissioner bluntly told L’Eclaireur: “The core issue is pile-driving noise for marine mammals, but we have scant data—and nobody’s bothering with the rest of the marine fauna.”
It’s a safe bet the PPE’s glossy paper targets and soaring figures are little more than hot air. If they’re not, an even uglier problem looms: consumption isn’t keeping pace with this manic production push, so the grid faces inevitable—and worsening—saturation. Unless, of course, we play the other card: throttling nuclear output and curtailing renewables.
Nuclear stands to lose big— a confidential internal EDF report pegs the added cost at €4 billion annually. Renewables? They get off lightly: the foregone revenue from non-injected power is generously reimbursed by tax payers. Nothing short of a state-organized racket funding a non-sustainable market and lining the pockets of a few.
In short, this PPE is classic French policymaking: grandiose rhetoric masking improvised arithmetic, ideological fudge, and a willful blindness to reality. The only certainty? Higher bills, legal quagmires, and more dependence on fossil backups when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.
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