why has France fallen so far behind its European neighbors?

This text corresponds to part of the transcription of the report above. Click on the video to watch it in full.

In France, 28% of the electricity produced comes from renewable energies. This is a long way from Portugal, 88%, or Norway, 100%. We are behind because, for a long time, we favored nuclear power. Because these wind or solar projects are often contested and we lack the workforce. Here are three pieces of information to help you understand.

In France, for a very long time, the priority was nuclear power. This is our first information. The atom was the guarantee of cheap electricity. But today, that produced by renewables is also competitive: 59 euros per MWh for electricity from onshore wind turbines, for example, compared to 61 MWh for nuclear power.

Our second piece of information is that these projects are often contested, accused in particular of disfiguring the landscape. Deadlines are therefore extended. In France, it takes seven to nine years to get a wind project off the ground, compared to only two to three years in Germany. And at sea, it’s the same thing. We have thousands of kilometers of coastline in France and yet our first offshore wind turbines in Saint-Nazaire date from 2022, almost 20 years after the United Kingdom.

Third piece of information, we lack the workforce to achieve the objectives we have set for ourselves: 40% renewable electricity by 2030. To do this, we would need to hire 200,000 people to install twice as many onshore wind turbines and three times as many solar panels. However, photovoltaic installers or wind turbine maintenance technicians are professions that are struggling to recruit.

Non-exhaustive list.