Wind of change as France faces end of era
A few months ago French environment minister Nicolas Hulot took the trip of almost 100m to the top of a wind turbine funded partly by a co-operative of poultry farmers. Back on the ground, he found the right analogy to tell his audience why the country needs plenty more of the same.
”Energy is like eggs,” said the television personality chosen by President Emmanuel Macron to lead France’s energy transition, during the trip to the village of Juillé, 200km from Paris. “You cannot put all the eggs in the same basket.” Projects such as Juillé’s are meant to correct the fact that, for many years, France has done almost exactly that with nuclear power, which generates almost three-quarters of its energy.
- “France, with a massive share of nuclear, has been slower than other countries in moving to renewables, but . . . it’s also down to the indecisiveness of our policymakers so far,” said Marc-Antoine Eyl-Mazzega, director of Paris-based think-tank Ifri’s Centre for Energy.
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