As if the pandemic of the Covid-19 and the economic and financial consequences of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia were not enough, here is France confronted to a new hard time, the petrol scarcity which has provoked the closure of 30% of the filling stations. That risks to paralyze the activity and to generate a deep unsatisfaction among the population. In several regions, as in the North and in Ile-de-France, motorists in never ending queues wait in front of the last stations remained open. This situation results from several factors.

The first one is the decision of the Total Energies group to offer a 30 cents reduction which added itself to the one already given by the State in all the stations. This commercial gesture has had, as a consequence, to incite motorists to go to the group stations, which rapidly were in the incapacity to cope with that customers crowd and which has had to close the related pumps. That has started a worry, amplified by the media. Then, anxious motorists went to all the still remained open stations, which has generated the current situation. It is the well-known theory of the verified anticipations. When you worry about a penury and when you try to protect yourself against it, you create it.

To that was added a social movement blocking refineries by strikers. Total Energies, in order to answer to the critics about its profits generated by oil prices increase, had granted to its clients a price cut, had increased its dividend to the profit of its shareholders and was going to pay more taxes to the State. Unfortunately, the group had forgotten its workers and they started this movement which has made the situation worse.

But an essential point, not mentioned, has itself also, contributed to this crisis, the reduction in ten years of the France refining capacities, from 1.7 million b/j in 2010 to 1.14 b/j in 2021. We have there a good example of the des-industrialization which is the clear consequence of a  decision of the State, after the “Grenelle de l’Environnement” in 2008, where was decided to reduce taxes on the diesel. French people then have preferred, when they bought a car, these ones with a diesel engine which have represented near 65% of new vehicles registrations in 2019. The consumption of this fuel has followed. In 2022, gasoline represented less than a third of the private vehicles fuel consumption.

Refining is a very rigid technique and it was not possible to transform a tool which was producing gasoline into one which produces diesel. And it was not profitable to import oil, to refine it in France to, after that, export the gasoline in the countries where the demand was still important. When the State, conscious of its mistake, because diesel is much more damaging public health due to particles emitted by the engines than gasoline, has wanted to come back with a re-increase of the taxes, it has had to face a violent social movement and it has been obliged to renounce to it. Motorists had been incited to drive with diesel and then they were going to pay more taxes. We have there a good example of a measure supposed to be environment-friendly, from a wrong analysis, which has the opposite effect. More, it had very negative industrial and social consequences.

It is rare that the State recognizes its mistakes. Yet, it would be desirable that it takes the lessons from the current situation because a much serious crisis is on the way with the European decision France supported to forbid the sale of thermal engine vehicles from 2035. This project will have major industrial and social consequences if it is maintained, since it doesn’t correspond to the expectations of a huge majority of motorists and because its effects on the environment will be without any bearing with the deployed efforts. For near 10 years, the State has offered generous subventions in favor of the 100% electric vehicles. Despite that, less than 10% of the consumers choose that mechanization for a simple reason, the insufficient autonomy of the vehicles. Who will invest an important sum for a car which will not allow to going into vacations with the family? Nobody or almost and it is what we see today. The majority of electric cars are sold for an urban utilization and to household who have already another one.

Arguments in favor of the environment are quite also weak. First the used electricity must be de-carbonized. It is not near to be the case as is showing the energy crisis in Europe we are going through and it definitely will not be the case in 2035 when we know, for instance, that the new French nuclear program will be hardly starting, and in the best case, to be in operation and that nothing comparable is forecast in Europe. Climate warming is a global phenomenon and the share the State takes to its restraint is in proportion to its own emissions. But French ones are neglectable and European Union ones are quite low compared to United States, China and especially India ones to come. In these conditions do we have to launch such a radical and risky transformation of a strategic industrial sector in such a short timing? The question must be risen.

This question is all the more justified than the production of electric vehicles and of their batteries is, itself, highly consuming fossil fuels, which limits the interest to have recourse to such a mechanization. Atop of that, the batteries need the use of special minerals like lithium and rare earths whose France, as most European countries, are deprived with. We notice the current consequences of the Germany dependance to natural gas imported from Russia, due to choices which are revealing disastrous for the whole Europe. Around 80% of the known reserves of rare earths are located in China. Even if the current worries about an eventual invasion of Taiwan with the political and economic consequences it would imply are maybe overestimated, has it been imagined what could be the situation of the car industry whose even existence would depend of the rare earths imported from China to produce the batteries of its vehicles if that threat was becoming a reality?

The Europe dependance, through the choice made by Germany about the Russian natural gas, has just generated a major energy crisis. The French public authority bad decisions regarding the different categories of fuels are by large at the origin of the current penury. It hurts the travels of millions of people which are going to work and the truck transportation system which is essential for the enterprises supply chains, already perturbated by geopolitical tensions. So such a rapid reversal in favor of the electric vehicle, without the issue of the supply safety of the components and of the raw materials necessary to the production has been solved, carries weight on this sector a major threat, without that the advantages in favor of environment are convincing.

Crisis have frequently good aspects because they can lead to measures which at the end are a benefit for everybody. We must hope that the fuel penury which is hurting France makes the State conscious that in one hand the travel availability is essential for the economic activity and that transforming so brutally a sector which allows to move, is worth that it is thought about, because 2035, it is tomorrow.