(Paris) Energy bursts into the countryside: Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire has promised a 10 to 15% reduction in the electricity bill next year, a way of pulling the rug out from under the foot of the RN, which has made purchasing power one of its hobbyhorses.
“The electricity bill of each French person will drop by 10 to 15% in February 2025”, compared to the current rate. “This is the commitment I am making,” Mr. Le Maire declared Tuesday on BFMTV/RMC.
The stakes are high, as gas and electricity have largely contributed to fueling inflation and weighed on the French budget in recent years, against the backdrop of the post-COVID-19 recovery and the war in Ukraine.
If at the height of the energy crisis, the government put in place a very expensive tariff shield, making France one of the most protective countries in Europe in this area, the gradual exit from this system resulted in a soaring bills, deplores UFC-Que Choisir.
“Since the start of 2023, the regulated rate has jumped by 40%. We are at more than 70% in ten years […] energy poverty is growing,” Cédric Musso, director of political action for the consumer association, told AFP.
The overall annual household electricity bill “is on average 2,000 euros compared to 1,600 a year ago,” he added.
But consumers will experience a respite from next year, assures Bruno Le Maire, thanks, according to him, to the government’s energy policy, in particular “because we produced 330 terawatt hours of nuclear electricity last year. Because we invested in renewables.”
The reason for this expected drop lies in the method of calculating the regulated tariff, which is partly correlated with prices on the wholesale markets over the last two years. However, after the surge in prices in 2022 which reached on average 250 to 300 euros per megawatt hour (MWh), prices have been falling since 2023, oscillating today between 40 and 60 euros per MWh, also under the effect of incentives for sobriety.
“There is such a drop in wholesale prices and especially a record year of 2022 which no longer fits into the calculation, that this will automatically result in a falling bill,” explains Nicolas Goldberg, energy expert at Colombus Consulting.
Better: this reduction “could be more significant than -10/-15%, even if the government tax” is completely restored, the excise on electricity.
On February 1, while prices on the wholesale market were already falling, the electricity bill had increased by just under 10% on average due to an initial increase in this tax, thus concretizing the government’s desire to gradually exit the tariff shield.
This must still be increased in February 2025 to return to the level before the subsidization of energy prices. But this revaluation has been included in the calculation of the reduction in bills next year, Bercy confirms.
The RN’s program for the European elections promised to “reduce household electricity bills by 30 to 40%” by reestablishing a French price for electricity”, devoid of the rules of the European market.
For Nicolas Goldberg, Bruno Le Maire’s announcement can be seen as “a message sent to the RN to say that there is no need to fiddle with the calculation formulas, because the drop will be there in February”.
Also a way of pulling the rug out from under the RN the day after the announcement of the 12% increase in the gas bill scheduled for July 1.
In the event of victorious legislative elections for the RN and its accession to Matignon, the vice-president of the far-right party Sébastien Chenu, warned that his first reform would be “a measure of purchasing power: stopping the rise in the price of gas announced by the government”.
However, it was not decided by the government, but by the energy regulatory commission. It is mainly due to the increase in maintenance costs of the GRDF gas network while there are fewer gas subscribers to support these expenses.
