At a time when Parliament is debating a text on the country's energy sovereignty, highlighting the security of supply, the competitiveness of production tools and their contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, it is becoming clear that it is electricity that has played an essential role in the country's prosperity by meeting these requirements. But this is not new.

Nearly a century ago, the painter Raoul Dufy had produced, for the 1937 Universal Exhibition, on the order of the organizers, a set of a hundred paintings which, together, described the appearance of electricity in civilization. Portraits were drawn of those who, over the centuries, made this new energy possible, from Archimedes and Galileo to Thomas Edison and Pierre and Marie Curie. These canvases, assembled in a room of the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, show how the world was transformed by the electricity fairy.

This historical reality is still relevant since the energy transition will require the decarbonization of the sector and since the demand for electricity will grow all over the world with the development of electric mobility and the growing needs of data centers necessary for artificial intelligence. France has major assets thanks to its nuclear programm, which sometimes supplies up to two-thirds of needs, and thanks to its hydroelectric dams, two sources that can be controlled according to changes in demand, and not intermittent.

But these installations were built at a time when it was still possible to carry out ambitious projects without provoking violent demonstrations and endless administrative appeals. The abandonment of the Notre-Dame des Landes airport project when a referendum organized by the region had revealed that the majority of the population was in favor of it, and the current disturbances relating to the construction of the motorway that should link Toulouse and Castres, show the efforts to be made to strengthen the French electricity model and protect the new investments that will have to be made in the future.

The recent crises (Russia's invasion of Ukraine causing a sharp rise in energy prices and the consequences of the discovery of corrosion phenomena on many power plants) have also been an opportunity to demonstrate France's ability to overcome them. Nuclear production fell from 376 to 295 TWh between 2021 and 2022. EDF had chosen to proceed with the repairs as quickly as possible, while the Nuclear Safety Authority had judged that delays could be granted. But this has allowed production to return more quickly to its normal level, i.e. more than 380 TWh in 2024.

Foreign trade has also helped to mitigate this shock. Traditionally in surplus (45 TWh in 2021), they became in deficit in 2022 (12 TWh) before rebounding with surpluses of more than 60TWh in 2023 and 80 TWh in 2024. In the last two years, electricity has contributed to the reduction of the country's energy bill to the tune of 5 billion euros. The dams, which produce around 55 TWh each year, depending on the level of rainfall, also deliver carbon-free and competitive electricity. The average price of electricity in France in 2023 was €237 per MWh, of which €134 represents production costs. Germany, on the other hand, had a price of €410, including €200 for production costs.

But consumers, who subscribe to the regulated tariff, have not been spared. The State, by playing on taxation, sought to mitigate the consequences of the surge in prices on the European electricity market resulting from the halt in imports of Russian natural gas and the need to find other sources which were necessarily more expensive. But EDF passed it on. In the "peak hours" tariff, the price of a KWh rose from €0.122 in 2021 to €0.146 in 2022, then to €0.185 in 2023 and €0.205 in 2024 before falling back to €0.145 at the beginning of 2025. It is therefore still 19% higher than that set four years ago.

EDF's net profit benefited from this, reaching 11.4 billion in 2024 after 10 billion in 2023. It is necessary, given the significant investments to be made in the years to come, for the company to generate significant margins, but this cannot be done to the detriment of households and the competitiveness of companies. A regulation requires EDF to sell a share of its nuclear production to its competitors at a price much lower than the market price. This dates back to the time when we were talking about the "nuclear rent". This caricatural vision must be abandoned. There is no nuclear rent. Considerable investments have been made in the past with success since EDF has very competitive production costs. But there was a risk. It has been overcome and it is normal that the person who took them should take all the benefits and not redistribute part of it to his competitors.

The existence of a European electricity market is essential. But there was strong pressure on France to adopt provisions that would protect countries that had not made the nuclear choice or that were going to give it up. The lessons of the crisis following the invasion of Ukraine and of Germany's strategic mistakes must be learned. At a time when military spending is being revived to ensure the Union's sovereignty, everything must be done to ensure its energy independence. Nuclear production makes a major contribution to this while allowing significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Electricity is the energy of the twenty-first century. And there is no point in encouraging it if it is produced from fossil fuels, most of which are imported. The resolution of the corrosion crisis in just over a year has demonstrated the reliability of this technology. The foreseeable extension of the life of the power plants will make it possible to largely amortize the costs of the corresponding works and those resulting from the construction of new power plants. The resulting increase in margins will make possible a policy of price moderation for the benefit of companies, an essential condition for reindustrialisation projects to see the light of day and, above all, for the current threats to high-consumption sectors such as aluminium, steel and chemicals to be averted.

In economics, there is nothing magical. But at a time when growth is almost zero and unemployment is rising (+0.8% in the 1st quarter after correcting for statistical changes), it is no longer reasonable to hesitate and argue over parliamentary texts that are only indicative and have unclear deadlines. France must commit to the electrification of its economy, make its European partners accept its choices and reform the perverse rules that weaken its production system.

The myth of beneficial competition in the field of electricity must be abandoned, or at least not maintained by counterproductive mechanisms. It would be better to impose criteria, as was the case with the euro, relating to security of supply and the environment, which would have to be respected by countries wishing to have access to the European electricity market.