A gray sky, rain, a wintry frost and a site still under construction, or almost. There is hardly a more appropriate setting for a first day at the head of EDF. Luc Remont, confirmed this Wednesday evening in the Council of Ministers, is going to Normandy this Thursday morning, to the site of the Flamanville nuclear power plant, in his new clothes as CEO of the public group. Beginnings inevitably scrutinized closely, as the company staggers. Historically low availability of the existing nuclear fleet, a company weighed down by a financial burden of around 60 billion euros, deleterious relations between the social body of the electrician and its state shareholder… The inventory of projects to be carried out for the ex-manager of Schneider Electric sends shivers down the spine.
With this Thursday’s trip to Flamanville, Luc Rémont is already getting into the tough stuff. On site, the two 1300 MW reactors have been shut down since the beginning of 2022 because of the famous stress corrosion phenomenon which will cost the company the tidy sum of 32 billion euros. The second must normally be reconnected to the network by November 26, and thus participate in securing the electricity network for the winter. EDF is behind on its forecasts. In the last score made by RTE, 5 GW (approximately the equivalent of the installed power of as many reactors) was missing. With the Express, the Minister for Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher thus confirms that Luc Rémont will be expected on the group’s “industrial excellence”, and “in the very short term, by piloting the existing nuclear fleet and by greatly increasing the level of operational performance”. Beyond the existing one, it is also in Flamanville that the first EPR built on French soil should start up in 2023. must not miss its debut.
For two months, the fifty-year-old has had time to prepare for the magnitude of the task. Appointed at the end of September, and heard at the end of October by the Economic Affairs Committee of the Assembly and the Senate, the one who has multiplied the passages in ministerial cabinets has shown his good knowledge of the files, in the face of sometimes hostile questions from parliamentarians. The big oral went well, but a completely different task awaits him, avenue de Wagram. Namely putting the whole company under tension from its executive committee to the managers. “He is not there to overturn the table, but he is still appointed to this position so that everyone gets back to it”, explains a former member of the house. Continuity, in change? As a symbol, Luc Rémont visited Tuesday the Direction Optimization Amont Aval Trading (DOAAT), in the company of the now ex-CEO Jean-Bernard Lévy, who said goodbye to the 200 highest managers of the group that evening. “A peaceful handover of power is not so recurrent in the history of the group”, we are positive in the entourage of the company.
Cut off heads, or not
After the induction speeches, the time will come for choices. In addition to the need to keep the reactors running like clocks, the Minister for Energy Transition has set clear missions for Luc Rémont: “anticipate the extension of existing nuclear power plants, prepare the new nuclear program, increase the potential for renewable production, in particular hydraulic or in the longer term, anticipating the investments necessary for the transport and distribution networks”, explains Agnès Pannier-Runacher. Given the group’s high indebtedness, is a rotation of the company’s asset portfolio or even a wave of disposals also on the agenda? Without answering, the minister points to a “stake on industrial and innovation synergies with the group’s strategic activities”.
The battlefield is immense, but will the ex-Bank of America banker Merrill Lynch surround himself with the same generals as his predecessor? Many are convinced externally of the need to change all or part of the company’s executive committee. “We have to shake the coconut tree”, confided to the Express a big boss of the energy sector in recent weeks. “He is not going to cut off all the heads that stick out, and when he does, it will be with the forms. But we must not be mistaken about Luc Rémont. At Schneider, he did not hesitate to place his lieutenants”, explains the former manager quoted above. What leeway will he have in high places? “I have every confidence in him to surround himself with the best talent. He must give himself all the means to succeed in his mission”, assumes Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
Union powder keg
By taking the head of the group, the new CEO also knows that he is eagerly awaited by the unions. The EDF group has just emerged from a complicated autumn on the social level, with successive mobilizations on certain power stations which affected nuclear production. Coincidence of the calendar, the powerful National Federation of Mines and Energy (FNME) of the CGT also held its congress, this Wednesday evening, with a round table on the future of the Public Energy Service in Montreuil in the region. Parisian. On the platform, Sébastien Menesplier, secretary general of the FNME, never ceased to thunder against “the aberration of the liberalization of the market”, the “diktat of Brussels on competition”. He also took the opportunity to shoot a few arrows in the direction of the new boss. “Nationalization does not guarantee the future of EDF, quite the contrary. The dismantling will not take long to resurface, it is the whole roadmap of the new CEO Luc Rémont”, explained the trade unionist, to applause of the room but also of 4 deputies invited for the occasion – Sébastien Jumel (PCF), François Ruffin (LFI), Olivier Marleix (LR), Philippe Brun (PS).
The last of them, who took the opportunity to unveil a bill for the nationalization of the public company which would prohibit any division of the company, for his part considered that the operation to raise the capital of the State 100% EDF (validated Tuesday evening by the Financial Markets Authority) masked a “Hercule bis” (named after the first project to reorganize the company abandoned in 2021), as well as the sale to private capital of “30% of the company’s activities related to the energy transition”. In his eyes, the purchase of the 16% stake in EDF which the State lacked – 9.7 billion euros in theory – will be offset by a vast program of asset disposals from the public group. “It’s a work of destruction”, still judged the deputy. On the executive side, however, we firmly deny wanting to divide the company by apartment.
At the CFE-CGC, we still share the concern of the comrades of Montreuil. “Is Luc Rémont the man of a project or the man of the government? If he comes with the idea of dismantling in his suitcases, he must know that the social body is under tension and has already known how to mobilize recently, with movements of an unprecedented scale. It will not take much to rekindle the fire”, remarks Amélie Henri, the central union representative. However, the latter says she is ready to listen: “His CV and the fact that he is appointed by the government raise concerns, but we will judge the project, not the man. It is already positive that he asked to meet with us less than 15 days after taking office”, she explains. So no blank check, but no trial of intent yet.