Senators, from the right and the left, spoke out on Tuesday evening, November 26, against a government provision aimed at increasing the TICFE on electricity in the finance bill for next year. Instead, they prefer to raise the gas tax.
This was one of the flagship measures of the 2025 budget. The Senate opposed a government provision on Tuesday, November 26 in the evening aimed at authorizing an increase in electricity taxation, to tax it at a level higher than the pre-energy crisis period. A very large vote by show of hands, with voices from both the right and the left, allowed the upper house to reject this measure of the finance bill (PLF), for which the government hoped to obtain more than 3 billion euros. . “The government has chosen the easy way to find new revenue: tax electricity again. This measure is socially unjust.particularly annoyed the socialist Thierry Cozic.
The senators notably compensated for this measure by an increase in the gas tax, for a gain estimated at 1.2 billion euros. According to general rapporteur LR Jean-François Husson, the bill for households heated with gas would increase “around 60 euros per year” for a house of 100 m², while «pour the same house heated by electricity»the painful would reach “200 to 300 euros” with the government proposal.
This vote is in any case a first major setback for Michel Barnier’s government on this budget in the Senate chamber, a chamber which supports it, while threats of censorship targeting the Prime Minister are increasingly being made. more pressing. The National Rally has notably made this measure one of its red lines with a view to censoring the Barnier government.
The government, in search of savings in its budget, gave an unfavorable opinion to this rebalancing. “We prefer an increase in the TICFE [taxe sur l’électricité] with a continued reduction in the electricity bill; to an increase in the gas tax which would de facto increase the bill for our fellow citizens,” launched Budget Minister Laurent Saint-Martin, recalling that the government has “engaged” to reduce electricity bills by 9% on February 1 for 80% of French people.
Wholesale Market
This promised reduction is in fact made possible by the fall in wholesale prices on the electricity market, which will allow the government to increase the tax on electricity without bills ultimately increasing. The executive had thus introduced into its draft budget a mechanism allowing it to raise this tax to a level potentially higher than that before the crisis.
In the Assembly, a coalition of oppositions with the right also voted against the measure, even rejecting the entire article relating to electricity taxation.
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