The government presents its green industry bill on Tuesday

2023-05-16 10:50:24

By Le Figaro with AFP

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The executive wishes to “accelerate by using […] climate change as a lever for decarbonization and reinvestment in France”, according to Bruno Le Maire.

The government presents Tuesday in the Council of Ministers its bill on green industry, intended to promote a carbon-free reindustrialization of France, its main battle after the painful pension crisis. Tax credit, reduction in authorization periods, turnkey industrial sites… The Ministers of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, and of Industry, Roland Lescure, will detail the key measures of the text already unveiled by the President Emmanuel Macron, engaged for several days in a sequence praising the attractiveness and the reindustrialization of the country.

Hoping to regain momentum after the difficult pension reform, the executive believes that its policy to reverse half a century of deindustrialization is already beginning to bear fruit. Citing the creation of 200 factories and 80,000 jobs in two years, Bruno Le Maire stressed that “this had not happened for decades in France“, Monday on the sidelines of the summit “Choose Franceon French attractiveness. “We now want to accelerate by using (…) climate change as a lever for decarbonization and reinvestment in France“, he added.

To encourage new establishments of industrial sites, the bill of 13 articles intends to shorten, by dividing them by two, the authorization procedures, to nine months maximum. To this end, while land is scarce, one billion euros is planned for “clean up» wastelands, with the objective of preparing 50 pre-developed turnkey sites.

In response to the very proactive policy of the “Inflation Reduction ActAmerican in this matter, as well as the rise of Chinese power, a “green industry tax creditwill be created to attract industrial investment in sectors such as batteries, heat pumps, wind turbines or solar panels. This tax credit could cover 25% to 40% of the investments made, taking advantage of a recent relaxation of European state aid rules for green technologies. The government hopes for 20 billion euros in investments by 2030 and the creation of tens of thousands of jobs. If he has not provided an overall amount for this device, which will be decided “project by project“, the Ministry of the Economy indicated that it would be compensated by the reduction of tax niches”brunes», that is to say the advantages granted in particular to fossil fuels.

The ecological bonus on the purchase of an electric car will be reformed to take into account the carbon footprint of their production. Subsidies for decarbonization are also planned for existing industries, as well as 700 million euros for training.

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Zero cost

«We want to give ourselves the best chance of having green industrial sectors on our territory“, indicated Bruno Le Maire. “It’s a no-holds-barred battle to bring investment home, jobs home, tech home.“, he added, justifying the use of public subsidies to attract projects, such as a ProLogium battery factory in Dunkirk.

However, the government wants the measures in favor of the green industry to be made at zero cost for the public finances in bad shape, which it is committed to redressing over the next few years. Costing issues will be discussed in the context of the next finance law. In addition to public funds, it also intends to mobilize private savings via a new “future climate savings plan” for minors, the annual collection of which can reach one billion euros. This savings plan, whose remuneration should be higher than that of the Livret A, will benefit from a guaranteed capital and will be exempt from tax and contributions, with a ceiling around 23,000 euros.

Questioned by AFP, the economist Camille Landais, deputy president of the Council for Economic Analysis, however deemed the measures put forward by the government insufficient, believing that its reindustrialization strategy lacked clarity as to its course and its contours. “What seems problematic to me is to absolutely want to sell the whole of a green industrial policy as fundamentally creating lots of jobs“, whereas this is not necessarily the case according to him, he underlined. The presidential camp, devoid of an absolute majority in the National Assembly where the bill will arrive on July 17 according to Bercy, will also have to convince beyond its benches to have its text adopted.

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