Environmental candidate for the presidential election, Yannick Gadot, said he wants to “re-nationalise” the EDF by changing its status on Sunday, January 16. “Electricity is a public good. EDF must be renationalized as an EPIC” – General industrial and commercial enterprise – tweeted Yannick Gadot. “What I want is for EDF to become a powerful and coherent strategic tool in the service of the energy transition”MEP Explained To the grand jury RTL-le Figaro-LCI.

Electricity is a public good. The EDF must be renationalized as an EPIC public institution. #LeGrandJury #Jadot2022

—Yannik Gadot (@yjadot) Jan 16 2022

“When the state shuts down a nuclear power plant, we pay astronomical compensation to the EDF and the shareholders. Today, you have the EDF operator that, through government decisions, is in the process of committing hara-kiri so that Total and Engie achieve record profits and pay massive dividends to their shareholders”, denounced. According to him, moving from about 84% to 100% of the EDF capital for state costs “About 5-6 billion euros, it’s much cheaper”.

EDF has accumulated setbacks as the government has asked it to increase the volume of nuclear electricity sold by 20% at a discount to its competitors this year to curb rising electricity prices for consumers.

Furthermore, the environmental candidate requests the formation of a parliamentary inquiry commission after ‘Absolute failure’ From Flamanville EPR (Manche). “No one, no minister, no EDF official before a commission of inquiry to justify 17 billion euros” The overrun, he said (20 billion according to the Court of Audit, compared to 3.3 billion was initially planned). “Do you realize that 17 billion is roughly the budget for higher education? And you have people who have fermented billions of euros of public money without ever being held accountable”, lamented.

The EDF announced on Wednesday that the start-up of the new generation EPR nuclear reactor under construction in Flamanville will be postponed until 2023, in particular due to the COVID-19 pandemic, at a new additional cost of 300 million euros. Under construction since 2007, EPR was initially scheduled to start operating in 2012, but the construction site was affected by several setbacks and additional costs. In addition, EDF has also had to extend the shutdown of some of its nuclear reactors, at several French power plants, where corrosion problems have been identified. In some cases, the closure will continue until the end of the year.