France’s head of economy and finance labeled the country’s energy crunch an “absolute emergency” as consumers face rising electricity bills due to a power shortage.
Finance minister Bruno Le Maire said ratepayers will see an increase of between 35% and 40% in electric bills without a solution to the shortage, which is being driven in large part by planned outages at a pair of nuclear power plants.
“It is an absolute emergency because the explosion in electricity prices is neither sustainable for households nor for businesses,” Le Maire said during a press conference Friday.
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He also pointed to the social unrest in Kazakhstan where protests against high fuel prices, which began earlier in the week, subsequently devolved into violence. Authorities say dozens of demonstrators have been killed, along with at least 18 members of the country’s security forces.
Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has since given an order to police and military to shoot any remaining demonstrators.
“Look at what is happening in Kazakhstan,” Le Maire said. “It’s quite instructive in terms of what can happen when energy, electricity, or gas prices explode. It’s politically dangerous.”
French utility Electricite de France SA took at least four nuclear reactors at two different power plants offline late last year to perform maintenance. The outages resulted in a loss of about 1 terrawatt hour for the power grid through the end of 2021, according to EDF, with additional losses down the pipe. One of the plants will remain offline until Jan. 23, while the other will be back online in early spring.
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The loss of power has forced the French government and generators to figure out how to make up a gap in the grid, and authorities are considering loosening restrictions on coal-fired electricity to do so.
Le Maire’s warning coincides with a longer-standing energy crunch that Europe faced much of last year, when prices for various fuel commodities and electricity hit record highs.
