The balls roll on the bridge of the public electrician, a scent of mutiny against the captain, Bruno le Maire, and the admiral, Jean Castex, the two faces of the State, shareholder of EDF at 84%. Wednesday, January 26, the public electrician experienced a historic strike movement, directed against the government.
franceinfo: It’s almost 43% of agents on strike: unheard of…
Management and unions did not even engage in a war of numbers. The inter-union also points out that many executives have walked off the job. This unprecedented movement of employees was preceded by another rather rare event: the almost public outburst of anger from the CEO, Jean-Bernard Lévy.
In a letter addressed to the executives of the group, that is to say several thousand people – in other words that he was not really aiming for confidentiality – John Bernard Lévy evokes a shock, following the announcements of Bruno le Maire, the Minister of the Economy, and he warns: he will take the necessary measures to safeguard the interests of EDF. We got there…
We know it’s because the government is “banging” into EDF’s war chest to guarantee its promise to control electricity bills, but is that the only reason?
It’s the straw that broke the camel’s back, a big straw all the same, since it risks amputating EDF’s results by 7 to 8 billion euros. In addition, to save its promise, threatened by the inexorable rise in electricity prices, the State supports where EDF has trouble: it reinforces a mechanism that the public electrician would on the contrary like to see disappear. It is called ARENH (regulated access to historical nuclear electricity), but nothing to do with a gladiator fight, at least at first sight.
Under the impetus of the European Union, which decided to liberalize the energy market, EDF must, since 2010, sell to its competitors at cost price a quarter of its nuclear electricity production. It is a question of allowing this competition to live in a country where EDF is almost the only producer.
EDF therefore sells this part of the production, at about forty euros per megawatt hour, when the same is trading at more than 200 euros on the markets. So when the State asks her to add 20% more low-cost electricity to the competition’s basket, so that she passes on the rebate to her bills, inevitably, the snake has a hard time passing.
And it wasn’t the first?
No indeed, Jean-Bernard Lévy has barely digested the previous one, the scrapping of the Hercules plan, this EDF reorganization plan which included partial privatizations and a separation of the group into three branches. Wanted by the state to negotiate benefits in Brussels, it was prepared by the CEO. He aroused union unanimity against him.
Faced with the blockage, Bercy took the helm without too many tweezers, to end up burying the project and letting the CEO grumble that there was no plan B to straighten out EDF’s finances. To this, we can add the public lessons that the State did not hesitate to inflict on EDF, in the Flamanville file.
Enough to make the proud CEO grit his teeth, who feels a certain weariness at feeling considered a sort of under-secretary of state for electricity, required to stand at attention when necessary, he who was appointed by François Hollande to replace the turbulent Henri Proglio, he ended up taking up his pen to declare the EDF homeland in danger, in the face of its main shareholder.