Hercules weakened?
The unions are re-mobilizing Wednesday February 10 against the EDF split project, including a rally around the National Assembly during the hearing of the boss of the electrician and while the government has opened the door to a "plan B" ".
This will be the fifth day of strike at the call of the inter-federal CGT, CFE-CGC, CFDT, FO since November 26, the second in 2021. Each time, the management, which refuses to comment , considered more than one in four agents to be on strike.
Read also: Hercules, this project that arouses the discontent of EDF employees
According to the unions, several scattered actions could take place, such as filter dams at the Penly nuclear power plant.
Reductions in costs in production centers and power plants are also expected.
But the biggest gathering is planned from 2 p.m. around the National Assembly, where EDF CEO Jean-Bernard Lévy, who will also have been heard in the morning by the senators, as well as the minister must be heard on the project. of Finances Bruno Le Maire.
First to appear before these same deputies, the Minister for the Ecological Transition explained Thursday that it would be necessary to
"find a plan B"
if France did not agree with the European Commission on the future of EDF.
"To date we are not even sure of reaching an agreement,"
added Barbara Pompili as a hundred agents and five parliamentarians protested outside against the project.
A dreaded “dismantling”
Since the last strike of January 19, the national elected representatives, after the local communities, have indeed come to swell the movement.
80 deputies from the left as from the right thus co-signed a letter of protest and asked the government to receive representatives of the EDF intersyndicale.
"We won the battle of ideas,"
says Sébastien Menesplier, federal secretary of the CGT Mines Energie federation.
We suspect that there is a problem somewhere.
The negotiations are carried out in the most complete opacity so it is difficult to know where the blockages come from ”
.
"We consider that we have never been so close to obtaining the withdrawal of the project, it is important to remain mobilized"
, he adds, denouncing the vagueness that surrounds him.
If the action has intensified in recent months, the unions have indeed shown their frank opposition since the presentation of the project in June 2019. They fear a
"dismantling"
which could result in a split into three entities of the electrician detained in 83% by the State: a public company (EDF bleu) for nuclear power plants, another (EDF vert) listed on the stock exchange for the distribution of electricity and renewable energies, and a third (EDF azur) which would cover the dams hydroelectric.
The unions call for EDF to retain its status as an
“integrated group”
, whose activities range from electricity production to network management and distribution to households.
Read also: EDF: the unions fiercely opposed to "Hercules", a reorganization project
The project, which was initially due to be presented at the end of 2019, has fallen behind schedule because it is conditional on the progress of discussions between France and Brussels.
Nevertheless, the threat of the use of ordinances to pass this reform seems to have dissipated.
Hulot asks to
"defer"
to Hercules
On Friday, the former Minister of the Ecological Transition Nicolas Hulot reassured the protesters by declaring in
Le Monde
that this
“project risked making taxpayers bear the enormous additional costs of nuclear power and completely privatizing the economic opportunities and benefits of renewable energies”
.
Like the opponents, he asks to
“postpone”
Hercules and to initiate a real debate on the future of EDF, faced with the challenge of its modernization while its debts are suffocating it.
"We cannot be satisfied with the status quo, we are faced with the climate emergency"
, calls Anne Debrégeas, EDF engineer and SUD Energie spokesperson.
“Whatever choice will be made on energy, massive investments are needed and only a public tool can do it efficiently and without being too expensive.
But this government does not want to push public investment and prefers to make way for the private sector, ”she
regrets.
