Xavier Bertrand wants the price shield to be extended to “all companies”

“What I am asking for, what I am proposing, is an energy tariff shield for all companies”declares the president of Hauts-de-France, Xavier Bertrand, Thursday, October 6 on franceinfo, a few hours before the presentation of the government’s energy sobriety plan. “It’s not just small businesses that are affected” by the rise in energy prices, he points out that they are the only ones to benefit from the tariff shield.

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“It will cost money but much less money than if companies go out of business.”

Xavier Bertrand, president of Hauts-de-France

at franceinfo

“During the Covid crisis, we helped all businesses”, he recalls. what he wants now, “it’s that we help our companies which are healthy today but weakened by the price of energy”. For him, it is“a fight for jobs” because “If healthy businesses close because of skyrocketing energy costs, we will have unemployment and people will also have difficulty paying their bills”.

Xavier Bertrand also expects from the government “that we can get through the winter without cuts and without price explosions”, and learn from the current situation. “We can make efforts at our level” but “The most important thing is to understand how we arrived at this situation of dependence” to make sure “May this never happen again”. He cited the closure of the Fessenheim nuclear power plant (Haut-Rhin), the result of a “villainous bargaining between socialists and ecologists”.