The National Assembly gave its final green light to the renewable energy acceleration bill on Tuesday, January 31, before the final adoption expected in the Senate on February 7. The deputies adopted the text by 217 votes against 169, with the support of the socialists and elected representatives of the small group Freedom, Independents, Overseas and Territories (LIOT), as in first reading.
Ecologists again abstained by criticizing a text “unambitious”. Communists, Les Républicains (LR) and Rassemblement national (RN) voted against. This vote is a satisfaction for the government, faced the same day with a new day of mobilization against its pension reform.
The bill dedicated to renewable energies gave rise to a compromise between deputies and senators a week ago. It aims to “remove all the locks that delay the deployment of projects”underlined the Minister of Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher. “We are the only European country not to have achieved its objectives” in wind and solar, she said.
Acceleration Zone Negotiations
The fiercest negotiations between deputies and senators focused on the planning of acceleration zones where priority should be given to deploying renewable energies, with the assent of the municipalities, as well as possible exclusion zones. “Local elected officials propose and have the last word on zoning”, underlined Minister Pannier-Runacher. And exclusion zones will only be possible for territories that validate acceleration zones, she recalled.
The left fears the return of the veto of the mayors, which LR demanded for the whole of the territory. And NGOs and players in the renewables sector criticize a ” Gaz factory “.
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Another sensitive subject is the definition of agrivoltaism, combining agriculture and energy production. The government ensures that the text regulates this practice, in order to avoid abuses at the expense of food sovereignty.
Throughout the debates, the LR deputies, contrary to their fellow senators, as well as the elected RNs, railed against the bill, pointing out the « nuisances » wind turbines.
This text is only the first part of a triptych on energy. In the spring, the executive intends to defend in the National Assembly the bill promoting the construction of new nuclear reactors, voted in first reading in the Senate on January 24.
Then the Parliament will decide, at best this summer, on the energy future of France, with the multiannual programming law, fixing the share of each energy (nuclear, renewable).