The government presented on Tuesday an amendment providing support of 1.55 billion euros for the decarbonization of industry, as part of the parliamentary debate on a 2025 budget nevertheless constrained by the drift in public finances, he said. we learned from the Ministry of the Economy.
“The decarbonization of our industry is an essential element of our economic strategy. It requires large-scale private and public investments,” declared the Minister of the Economy, Antoine Armand, in a comment sent to AFP.
“This decision, which marks a notable development in the initial draft budget, is fully in line with this strategy and will support key projects to produce in France while emitting less carbon,” he added.
This amendment was tabled identically by the vice-president of the National Assembly and former Minister of Industry Roland Lescure.
The latter is the signatory, with elected officials from all sides, of a column in the Tribune Dimanche which asked the government to maintain public aid to companies for the decarbonization of industry in the 2025 budget, constrained by public accounts in red.
– “Competitiveness” –
“This aid must make it possible to secure the achievement of national and European objectives by 2030 in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” explains the amendment published on the National Assembly website.
In addition to financing the construction of battery factories, electrolyzers, CO2 capture networks or wind fields, “they will also make it possible to secure the presence of industrial sites in high-emitting sectors over the long term, while “They are subject to strong international competition, being able to benefit from lower prices in environmental and social matters and on the price of carbon”, he underlines.
The Ministry of the Economy indicated to AFP that the text would be examined by the Senate within the framework of the “expenditure section”, after the rejection on Tuesday by the National Assembly, with the votes of the government coalition and the RN, of the bill that the left helped to largely rewrite.
The result of discussions with industrial companies, “this important amendment is also a response to the discussions that Antoine Armand and Marc Ferracci (the Minister of Industry, Editor's note) had with (…) the common base and in particular Together for the Republic”, we clarified at Bercy. The government has increased its gestures towards its fragile coalition in the Assembly.
At Bercy, we also mention an issue of “competitiveness” for the industry in “a difficult economic context for certain industrial sectors, in particular due to Chinese overcapacity on the market which is driving down prices”, while large industrial sectors like the automobile and chemical industries are announcing numerous job cuts.
Michelin President Florent Menegaux deplored last week the lack of competitiveness of French and European industry, exposed to higher wage and especially energy costs than elsewhere.
According to the Ministry of the Economy, the announced envelope will make it possible to support industrial decarbonization projects “still in the design phase”, “while preserving activity” and “by developing a real clean technology sector” in France, where the executive has made reindustrialization one of its priorities.
– Economies –
A census has already identified 81 major industrial decarbonization projects, according to Bercy. Particularly with the 50 sites which account for almost 60% of the industry's carbon emissions.
The government wants a budgetary effort of 60 billion euros next year, especially by reducing spending, “lines of reflection” are underway to identify savings measures at the same time.
At the end of 2022, Emmanuel Macron proposed a decarbonization pact to the 50 sites that emit the most CO2 in France, promising them a doubling of public aid to 10 billion euros in exchange for a doubling of their effort in this area.
The signatories of the platform called on the government to “keep its commitment”, deploring that “today, only 4 billion have been programmed for decarbonization”.
In a reaction to AFP, Roland Lescure praised the “commitment” of the government which “heard the call launched with elected officials from all political sides and from all territories”.
At the end of 2023, the Ministry of Industry estimated that decarbonizing French industry would generate “between 50 and 70 billion euros” in investments and additional costs for companies in seven years.
According to Bercy, Antoine Armand must go to Fos-sur-Mer (Bouches-du-Rhône) on Thursday, where the second industrial zone emitting the most CO2 after Dunkirk is located.
