Nothing now stands in the way of their promulgation. The purchasing power law and the amending finance law (LFR) for 2022, which also contains measures aimed at relieving the wallets of the French, were generally validated by the Constitutional Council on Friday, but with reservations of ‘interpretation. These two texts had been adopted by the National Assembly and the Senate several days ago.
More than 60 deputies and more than 60 senators had lodged an appeal against each of the two texts. Parliamentarians from the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) had denounced measures contrary to “several principles” and “values” constitutional. They had notably pinned “the monetization of working time recovery days (RTT)” and the “removal of the audiovisual fee”.
Compensate for the end of the royalty
Regarding the end of the license fee, the legislator will have to “fix the amount of revenue” supposed to compensate for this provision so that public broadcasting “is able to exercise [ses] public service missions”, decides the Constitutional Council in its decision on the LFR.
Regarding the law of purchasing power, the Elders had in particular been seized on the possibility of “raising the ceiling of greenhouse gas emissions applicable to certain installations for the production of electricity from fossil fuels”. The regulatory power will have to “set the level and the methods of this obligation in order to (…) not to compromise the respect of the objectives of reduction of these emissions and reduction of primary energy consumption of fossil fuels”, decides the Constitutional Council.
Fuel discount, increase in retirement pensions…
The two texts provide in particular for the increase of 4% in retirement pensions, social benefits, social minima and the activity bonus, the strengthening of the fuel discount or the abolition of the audiovisual license fee.
During the examination of the purchasing power bill, the deputies had also approved, against the advice of the government, the increase in the regulated price at which EDF is obliged to resell part of its nuclear electricity to its competitors, going from 42 euros currently at “at least 49.5 euros” per megawatt hour (MWh) from January 1, 2023. This obligation, known as Arenh (Regulated access to historical nuclear electricity), was imposed on EDF since 2011 as part of the opening up of the electricity market to competition.