France will abandon coal in 2027, converting its last two plants, declared Sunday President Emmanuel Macron, who, on the other hand, does not want to ban gas boilers as part of ecological planning.
For the ecological transition, “the first thing, and that is the fight we must fight for the country and internationally, we must get rid of coal, it is a fossil energy and the most polluting,” he declared during a television interview. on the TF1 and France 2 channels, on the eve of detailing ecological planning at the Elysée.
“By 2027, what are we going to do? We still have two coal-fired power plants, Cordemais (west) and Saint-Avold (east), we are going to convert them completely to biomass,” he said in this regard. the “first very concrete measure of this planning”.
Emmanuel Macron had already promised to close all power plants fired by coal, an extremely climate-damaging fuel, before the end of his first five-year term. In Cordemais (Loire-Atlantique), a conversion project has already been launched.
But the Saint-Avold plant, closed at the beginning of 2022, was used again last winter to guarantee the country’s supply in a context of energy tension.
“A setback”
Greenpeace lamented a “setback” on Sunday afternoon, recalling that during his first five-year term, Emmanuel Macron had promised for the first time to get France off coal in 2022.
“France should have eliminated coal years ago. If he were truly ambitious and pioneering, Emmanuel Macron would have also announced dates for the elimination of fossil oil and gas,” adds the NGO.
Regarding gas boilers, “I have asked myself a lot: we will not ban them,” said the president.
“We will not prohibit” the installation of new gas boilers, “because we cannot leave our compatriots, especially in the most rural areas, without a solution,” explained Emmanuel Macron. But the Head of State also advocated “supporting households to equip themselves with heat pumps, because heat pumps are smart, save energy and considerably reduce emissions.”
“We are reindustrializing through ecology,” he assured, also citing the case of electric vehicles, which France will be able to produce on its soil (“at least one million” at the end of the five-year period, he assured). ).
“What is very important for our French people is that we are attached to the car, we love the car and I love it,” he stressed.
Meanwhile, given the increase in fuel prices, he invited the Government to reestablish compensation of up to “100 euros per car per year” for the most modest “workers” who “need to drive.”
Source: BFM TV
