In the end, the government will have prevailed. While the Senate adopted at first reading, on the night of Friday November 4 to Saturday November 5, by a large majority, the bill relating to the acceleration of the production of renewable energies by 320 votes in favor and 5 against (four elected Republicans and a centrist), the right-wing senators gave up during the examination of the text two of the proposals which would have, if they had been voted, modified the nature of the text presented by the executive.
On the issue of offshore wind turbines first. While some senators had wanted to impose a minimum distance of 40 kilometers, or even more for the establishment of this type of project – invoking “considerable visual impact” –, the idea was ultimately not taken up. At the end of a hectic session, late Friday afternoon, elected officials voted by 186 votes against 151 amendments removing this controversial addition, to which the government was unfavorable.
“With this provision, we will no longer be able to launch projects, even floating ones, in the North Sea, the English Channel and the Mediterranean. Only the Atlantic Ocean could host projects”warned the Minister of Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher. “Do not clip the wings of the French marine wind industry”had, for their part, urged certain elected officials such as the socialist Jean-Michel Houllegatte.
“Do planning”
This decision came when already the day before, another major provision for right-wing senators had been rejected. The elected officials had this time refused to grant the mayors a possible right of veto on the establishment of renewable energy projects in their territory. A measure all the more controversial as its promoters wanted to see it extended to neighboring municipalities “in visibility” of said project.
“Are we really defending the mayors by giving them the atomic weapon of the right of veto but at the same time making them responsible? », asked the president of the centrist group in the Senate, Hervé Marseille, to justify such a backpedal. For the senator from Hauts-de-Seine, such a measure would have given “the image of a Senate hostile to renewable energies”.
Instead, the elected representatives of the Luxembourg Palace voted by a show of hands for a fairly complex system, allowing mayors to define “zoning zones” where these projects could be located. “Instead of being on a no or a yes from the elected officials, we are going to do planning by integrating reserved areas at the intermunicipal level, then at the regional level, explained Nadège Havet, senator (Rally of Democrats, Progressives and Independents) of Finistère. Project leaders will have everything to gain by settling in areas identified by elected officials because in the planning documents there is a public consultation phase. »
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