It is 1:30 p.m. this Sunday, January 22 in a large hall of the Cité des sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris. The scene could have looked like the end of a wedding, with its round tables covered in crumpled tablecloths, its scattered chairs, and this feeling of a youth full of restlessness and envy. In a corner of the room, a small group of about ten participants are talking, being careful not to cut each other off. They are between their twenties and thirties, and they want to succeed at all costs: convey their messages to the government to make the energy transition a success.
What to highlight? “The question is: how to consider a social project as a whole?”, insists one. “I think we have to put the politicians face to face with their responsibilities”, launches another, while opposite a participant is annoyed: “There, we are not going to jostle them!” Individual responsibility, inequalities and social justice, or economic pragmatism… These questions agitated the 200 or so young people aged 18 to 35 after four days of training and debates on the conditions for the success of the energy transition and the priorities to be adopted.
This exercise, which closes the consultation on the energy future of France, was wanted by the members of the National Commission for Public Debate (CNDP), who wanted to specifically include young French people. “It had to be as representative as possible, and we wanted to include in particular the abstainers, who here represent 34% of the participants”, explains Ilaria Casillo, vice-president of the CNDP, and guarantor of the good democratic behavior of this big meeting. In the end, 198 young people, including a majority of women, from all metropolitan regions and overseas, took part in the debate, which aimed in the words of the Minister for Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher “to make s express a generation that will have to bear the choices that will be made today”.
What does sobriety mean?
At the end of these training days, the participants had to decide on 34 measures: 17 for energy consumption, and as many on the subject of production. Construction of wind farms, development of biogas, promoting alternatives to private cars, or even reducing energy consumption in buildings… For the most part, these proposals were not very original, and sometimes fell within objectives already put in place. Above all, 24 measures emanated directly from the proposals of the Ministry of Transition. A frustration for the young people present, who could not vote against: only a color chart of three priorities is indicated (non-priority, short-term priority and long-term priority). A tight delta which was felt in the votes, where the “short-term priority” option was overwhelmingly represented. “There is not really a choice that is made. If everything is a priority, nothing is,” regrets Benoît d’Allaines, a 20-year-old business school student.
Among the ten measures developed by the participants, there was however nothing really divisive, or specifically oriented towards young people. Rather the desire for training and transmission of the concrete challenges of the transition. The idea of creating a “Climate appeal day” on the model of the defense appeal and preparation day was born, as was the establishment of a restaurant voucher for organic products. and locals… “The goal is for there to be systematic training and awareness of the climate emergency”, maintains Léo Hervé, 20 years old and an engineering school student.
One of the other themes at the heart of the exchange was obviously the question of sobriety. How to reach it? What consequences? To realize this, the young people present worked on the scenarios of the energy mix in 2050 developed by ADEME and the Electricity Transmission Network (RTE). Two institutions that advocate a drastic reduction in our energy consumption in the decades to come, and a major change in our behavior.
Prime Minister’s surprise visit
This exercise was for many an opportunity to learn the fundamentals of energy control. “I didn’t know that digital could be so polluting”, is still surprised one of them, still divided between the idea of watching videos in high quality, and its discouraging energy cost. What raise awareness, even question the idea of technological progress. “Basically, given the energy cost, I wonder if there’s any point in developing videos with even more definition, when 4K is already very good on a phone,” he finally noted. With a sometimes difficult return to reality: “I thought it would be easier, and we now realize that all parts of our lives are affected by this need for transition”, breathes Rémi Blin, student in 6th year of medicine, and came from Clermont-Ferrand for the occasion.
Despite the tight framework, the exercise also left a certain freedom to the young people present to make their voices heard, particularly attentive to taking their aspirations into account. At the end of the day, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, offered herself a surprise visit to the assembly, to listen to these proposals which “will feed the French energy-climate strategy”. A speech in front of a part of the audience which has sometimes regained its naturalness to shake up political leaders, even pushing the Prime Minister to justify her recourse to 49.3 in the National Assembly, or asking to show political courage in the face of to lobbies. “What matters to us is to be listened to, and that we see the translation of our efforts into action”, concluded Stella, a participant.
These four days of work will be mixed with the contributions of the national consultation, to be presented to the National Council for Refoundation. Ultimately, they should contribute to the debate of parliamentarians during the examination of the programming law on energy and climate. And it is likely that this will be followed closely by some participants.