The government presents Tuesday in the council of ministers its draft law on green industry, intended to promote a decarbonized reindustrialization of the France, its main battle after the painful pension crisis. Tax credit, reduction of authorization periods, turnkey industrial sites... The Ministers of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, and Industry, Roland Lescure, will detail the flagship measures of the text already unveiled by President Emmanuel Macron, engaged for several days in a sequence extolling the attractiveness and reindustrialization of the country.
Hoping to regain momentum after the difficult pension reform, the executive believes that its policy to reverse half a century of deindustrialization is already beginning to bear fruit. Citing the creation of 200 factories and 80,000 jobs in two years, Bruno Le Maire stressed that "this had not happened for decades in France", Monday on the sidelines of the summit "Choose France" on French attractiveness. "We now want to accelerate using (...) climate change as a lever for decarbonisation and reinvestment in France," he added.
To promote new industrial site establishments, the 13-article bill intends to shorten the authorization procedures by halving them, to a maximum of nine months. To this end, while land is scarce, one billion euros is planned to "decontaminate" wasteland, with the objective of preparing 50 pre-developed turnkey sites.
In response to the very proactive policy of the US "Inflation Reduction Act" in this area, as well as the rise of China, a "green industry tax credit" will be created to attract industrial investment in sectors such as batteries, heat pumps, wind turbines or solar panels. This tax credit will cover 25% to 40% of the investments made, taking advantage of a recent relaxation of European state aid rules for green technologies. The government hopes to invest €20 billion by 2030 and create tens of thousands of jobs. If it has not provided an overall amount for this device which will be decided "project by project", the Ministry of the Economy has indicated that it would be compensated by the reduction of "brown" tax loopholes, that is to say the advantages granted in particular to fossil fuels.
The ecological bonus for the purchase of an electric car will be reformed to take into account the carbon footprint of their production. Decarbonisation subsidies are also planned for existing industries, as well as €700 million for training.
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We want to give ourselves the best chance of having green industrial sectors on our territory," said Bruno Le Maire. "This is a battle in which no one gives themselves a gift to attract investment at home, jobs at home, technologies at home," he added, justifying the use of public subsidies to attract projects, such as a ProLogium battery factory in Dunkirk.
However, the government wants measures in favour of green industry to be done at zero cost for public finances in bad shape, which it has committed to straightening over the coming years. The questions of costing will be debated in the context of the next finance law. In addition to public funds, it also intends to mobilize private savings via a new "future climate savings plan" for miners, the annual collection of up to one billion euros. This savings plan, whose remuneration should be higher than that of the Livret A, will benefit from a guaranteed capital and will be exempt from tax and contributions, with a ceiling of around 23,000 euros.
Questioned by AFP, economist Camille Landais, deputy president of the Council of Economic Analysis, however, considered insufficient the measures put forward by the government, considering that its reindustrialization strategy lacked clarity as to its course and contours. "What seems problematic to me is to absolutely want to sell the whole of a green industrial policy as fundamentally creating a lot of jobs," while this is not necessarily the case according to him, he stressed. The presidential camp, lacking an absolute majority in the National Assembly where the bill will arrive on July 17 according to Bercy, will also have to convince beyond its benches to adopt its text.