Energy prices are increasing and the government is trying by all means to stem the increase, paradoxically after having organized this same increase by making commitments related to the energy transition.
Commitments that increase the price of electricity and gas.
Indeed, each time that wind or photovoltaic production increases, the price of electricity and taxes increase for French households and French companies ...
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In particular with the objective of switching to 50% nuclear power in the production of electricity by 2035. Environmental taxation will exceed 60 billion euros next year.
France is 99% dependent on imports for natural gas, so it is subject to rising prices linked to strong global demand.
In 2021, the price of gas increased by 57% between January and October, and is expected to increase by a further 30% by the end of the year, an increase which should continue until March 2022. As for the electricity, it is produced in France at low cost thanks to the French nuclear fleet.
However, part of the price of electricity is indexed to that of gas, in connection with the development of renewable energies (to compensate for periods of absence of renewable energy production).
Many taxes
The gas bill is of course made up of the supply, distribution of transport and storage but also many taxes: VAT (13%), TICGN, the internal consumption tax on natural gas (13%) and the CTA. for transmission tariff contribution (4%).
Taxes are therefore responsible for 30% of the final gas price in 2020. In 2016, the TICGN cost the French 700 million euros, in 2019, 2.4 billion ...
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The taxes weighing on electricity are also exponential: TICFE for internal tax on final consumption of electricity, CTA and VAT.
In 2021, the share of taxes in the final price of electricity increased further to reach 36% of the final score compared to 26% in 2010.
When the prices are low, these special taxes, TICGN and TICFE which finance the energy transition do not make too much talk about them but when the prices go up, it is another story as we saw with the TICPE and the vests. yellow.
Faced with the current rise in prices, the government first drew the energy check in March with an amount varying from 48 to 277 euros, then in December, with a fixed amount of 100 €.
This check makes it possible to offset the increase for 5.8 million households concerned (8.65% of the population), but what about the remaining 22.4 million households, who suffer this increase without compensation?
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Seeing that the energy check would not be enough, the Prime Minister also unsheathed the “tariff shield” for all households.
This shield will block gas prices from November 2021 until April 2022. This measure, if it allows immediate savings to households, will then postpone the cost of the increase, through a smoothing system, and will ultimately leave the households pay the entire increase in gas ...
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For electricity, a tariff shield will also be implemented.
At the start of 2022, a 12% increase was planned but this will be limited to 4% by reducing taxes.
It is the TICFE which should be lowered in order to compensate for the increase in the price of the kWh, a measure which is equivalent to approximately 5 billion € of tax reduction.
Patch measures
We see that the State is committed in the emergency to put measures fixes for the households.
He had no other choice but to lower the TICFE on electricity because how to explain, without tripping over the demonstration, that electricity is taxed more today than gas when we want go all-electric?
The government's argument is that the current rise in energy prices is cyclical, linked to the resumption of growth. But, in reality, everything is aligned so that the prices continue to rise. France now needs lasting and structural measures to maintain energy independence and sovereignty at fair prices for the French and their companies.
It took 6 weeks with little wind this summer to realize the random nature of wind power production and its consequences. The forced development of renewable energies, by shunning nuclear power, has had its day. As shown by the announcements of the President of the Republic on future investments in nuclear power. Now, it is also high time to rewrite France's energy roadmap with the real prices and the real costs of taxation. Far from what has been done for example with the climate law without costing worthy of the name.
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