“It’s very French to immediately think about the question of control and sanctions when we call for a collective effort to face a collective challenge”, said government spokesman Olivier Véran on Tuesday August 30 on franceinfo. He was asked about the possibility of random checks in companies, to check whether they are making efforts to rapidly reduce their energy consumption. “I call each [des entreprises] to establish, in September, its own sobriety plan”launched the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, the day before.
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“If everyone does not take his part […] we will have to impose reductions in consumption”also warned the Prime Minister, and “if we were to come to rationing, businesses would be the first to be affected”. “Everything is possible, all scenarios are on the table”, concurred Olivier Véran. “We are not in pessimism, we are in a lucid discourse”he said.
Sobriety plan for companies: what about those who do not? ➡ “Can we already talk about those who will do it?”, answers Olivier Véran. “There will be a mediator in charge of energy sobriety. When it is necessary to legislate, the State is at the rendezvous.” pic.twitter.com/pTRTYqdlxD
— franceinfo (@franceinfo) August 30, 2022
For him, “The time has come to change a number of our habits”. Thereby, “each and every one of us can act, it’s what we call ‘eco-gestures’ which allow us to have an impact on our energy bill and also on the planet”. The French are moreover “already very many” to do it. “Those who are already in a situation of fuel poverty are obviously not the ones who are going to be asked to make more efforts”he said.
“There will be an important step for the French, it is the presentation of our energy sobriety roadmap”, he pointed out. She “will be presented by the Prime Minister at the very beginning of the autumn, probably at the end of September-beginning of October”. According to him, “there will also be a communication campaign for the general public which will allow everyone to take ownership of tools and tools that are quite simple, quite basic, which allow them to have a real impact”.
Olivier Véran also returned to the state of French gas reserves. “We will have our objective of filling our gas stocks 100% by the end of the summer, that is to say that we are ahead of the preparation for the usual winters”, he specified. Nevertheless, “saying that we are 100% gas does not mean that we would have enough to survive the winter, if the Russians cut it and if we consumed a lot of it”.