Blow of tobacco Friday in the hemicycle of the Senate on the bill to accelerate renewable energies: in great confusion, the senators gave up the distance of 40 km from the coasts for wind turbines at sea, which they had introduced in committee.
The Senate voted by 186 votes against 151 amendments removing this controversial addition, which the government was against.
The senators also voted by a show of hands for an amendment by Nadège Havet (RDPI with a Renaissance majority) which restores the mechanism proposed by the government aimed at pooling public debates on the location of projects to accelerate their development.
The rapporteur LR Didier Mandelli for his part wanted to produce a map of the areas intended to accommodate installations on a national scale.
Above all, he planned to give preference to settlement areas located at a minimum distance of 40 km from the shore.
The votes were preceded by almost an hour of adjournment and long hesitations in the hemicycle on the method to follow to get out of the imbroglio.
“You have to have done the Senate plus eight to understand how a text is drawn up under these conditions”
, ended up launching Cédric Vial (LR).
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"There we write the law directly (...), the central question, which is political, is 'do we stay 40 km away'"
, asked Fabien Gay (CRCE with a communist majority).
With the mayors' right of veto, settled on Thursday, this question of the distance from offshore wind farms was one of the text's sticking points.
“With this provision, we will no longer be able to launch projects, even floating ones, in the North Sea, the English Channel and the Mediterranean.
Only the Atlantic Ocean could host projects
,” warned Energy Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
Macron wants 50 offshore wind farms by 2050
“We are endangering a sector”
which represents
“a whopping 6,000 direct jobs”
, she insisted.
For Pierre Médevielle (Independents), it was
"quite simply a funeral".
“Do not clip the wings of the French marine wind industry
,” urged Jean-Michel Houllegatte (PS).
On the other hand, senators wanted to impose this minimum distance of 40 km, or even more.
“The visual impact is considerable”
, pleaded Laurence Garnier (LR), evoking
“a striking encircling effect”
of the wind farm off Le Croisic (Loire-Atlantique).
The goal set by President Emmanuel Macron for 2050 is to deploy 50 offshore wind farms to reach 40 GW.
The Senate must complete the first reading of this bill no later than Saturday, which will then go to the National Assembly.