“I appeal to the spirit of economy of the French people. Let us save gasoline, electricity, heating… and that will be enough to reduce our consumption…” More than forty years ago, the 20 December 1973, Georges Pompidou appealed to the responsibility of the French and to small daily gestures to reduce the dependence of a country undermined by the first oil crisis in history. Another era, same gravity: a few days ago, it was to this same spirit that the current Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire addressed himself, ordering to lower the heating to reduce the tension on the gas. Worried, the Bercy tenant has been repeating the same refrain for several weeks. In his eyes, France and Europe are facing an energy shock “comparable in intensity and brutality” to that of 1973.
A similar shock and lexical field, but different remedies. Because the direction taken by the government does not borrow for the moment hardly from the coercive measures of the Messmer plan. Where are the stopping of TV shows after 11 p.m., the extinction of windows at night in stores, the speed limit on motorways, the capping by decree of heating in all French homes decided from the winter 73…? “The resilience plan presented on March 16 aims above all to safeguard the French people’s wallets against soaring prices. It does not really tackle the issue of energy independence through sobriety measures”, decrypts Alexandre Joly, head of the Energy division and member of the Strategy division of the firm Carbone 4.
Even the International Energy Agency says so
This, however, has proven itself in the past: “During the first four months of 1974, French consumption of petroleum products fell from 38.365 million tonnes to 33.127 million, i.e. a reduction of 13.6%”, indicated Pierre Messmer in his Memoirs on his government’s political response to the 1973 crisis. A dry regime that the International Energy Agency would not condemn. In a ten-point action plan published earlier this month, the organization estimates that advanced countries could save up to 2.4 million barrels of oil per day in four months on consumption of 45 million barrels per day. day approx. Jumbled up, his proposals rely on the reduction of at least 10 km / h of speed limits on motorways, teleworking three days a week, the establishment of car-free Sundays in large cities. “That an organization like this, historically linked to the oil industry, offers this type of measure, it’s unprecedented,” confirms a good connoisseur of the organization.
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Dario Ingiusto / L’Express
On the side of the Ministry of Ecological Transition, we are procrastinating. “At this stage, we are not there,” warns the entourage of Minister Barbara Pompili. On oil, the executive wants to reassure and is attached to the French obligation to have 90 days of reserve and the possibility of diversifying its supply. As for gas, the spring thaw is dispelling fears of a problem for the next few weeks, even if tensions will return even more strongly next winter. At the ministry, we defend ourselves from being wait-and-see, recalling the establishment of the boost for energy renovation or the purchase aid for heat pumps. “We are also going to launch an awareness campaign in the coming weeks to encourage the reduction of consumption. It is in the pipes”, adds an adviser.
Prevent rather than prohibit
Prevent, rather than prohibit or impose. The government is walking on eggshells. Even the war in Ukraine cannot erase the trauma of two years of successive confinements in terms of deprivation. In the middle of the presidential campaign, he hesitates to add oil to the embers of the social climate. And in particular by attacking the car, totem of peripheral France. More generally, sobriety struggles to invite itself into macronist software. In his speech in Belfort on February 9, the president got tangled up between efficiency (consuming better, via technological progress) and sobriety (consuming less) when talking about his vision for the country’s energy future. This issue is an important ideological dividing line with the Greens. In 2020, he had also shot down one of his three “jokers” on the proposal of the Citizen’s Climate Convention aimed at reducing the speed to 110 km / h on the four lanes. Even the entourage of Barbara Pompili recalls that the former elected environmentalist has a relationship “to sobriety much more uninhibited than part of the majority”.
Will the war be more mobilizing than the fate of the planet to operate this lever? Some are stepping up to the plate in recent days. Alexandre Joly, from Carbone4, indicates in a recent note that going to 110 km/h on the highway, generalizing 80 km/h and reducing car travel by 10% would be enough to reduce the share of imported Russian oil by 90%. in France. “Obviously these are radical changes explains the expert. But we were able to do it for example in the Second World War with rationing.” In the review The Great Continent, the ecological philosopher Pierre Charbonnier even sees in sobriety a “peaceful weapon of resilience and autonomy” against Russia. The idea is all the more attractive in that in terms of weaning off fossil fuels, the short-term issues – financially drying up Putin’s regime and loosening the constraint on prices – are similar to those of the end of the century: the fight against global warming.
Sobriety, therefore, necessary for the next winter but also the following ones? For individuals, the pill could be hard to swallow. “The studies carried out by Ademe show it: there is no opposition in principle. The population is waiting for clear rules as well as a fair sharing of the effort”, assures Alexandre Joly. Thomas Pellerin-Carlin, director of the Energy Center at the Jacques-Delors Institute, puts it down. For him, the reduction of consumption cannot be based “only on individual gestures”, but must also be based on action and strong investments by the public authorities, for example on renovation or mobility issues. The precedent of 1973 is enlightening in this respect: alongside deprivations, the first thermal building regulations in France had been adopted, and the French nuclear power program had been launched. Will the lesson be learned?