The boss of EDF Luc Rémont, whose administrator’s mandate came to the deadline in the summer, should not be renewed at his post, Emmanuel Macron plans to replace him with the director general of Framatome Bernard Fontana, the Elysée announced on Friday, March 21 in a press release. François Bayrou spoke of “a choice to project EDF to the future”, allowing to “accelerate” in nuclear. Bernard Fontana, “It is the patron of Framatome, that is to say those who played a role in the very important nuclear sector. He is an industrialist, that is to say that he is used to leading teams, accelerating projects, and therefore the choice that was made, it is a choice to project EDF to the future,” said the Prime Minister, on the sidelines of the visit of a factory of the Franco-Allem-Allem Bourges.
“The President of the Republic plans, on the proposal of the Prime Minister, to appoint Mr. Bernard Fontana as President and Chief Executive Officer of Electricity of France,” said the presidency. This appointment must still be approved by the commissions interested in the Assembly and the Senate. It could intervene without delay the term of the mandate of administrator of Luc Rémont.
Luc Rémont had been appointed in November 2022 to rectify the group’s nuclear production, very heavily in debt, while leading to the revival of the nuclear reactors construction program, announced by the Elysée in February 2022, synonymous with very large investments.
The non-renewal of Luc Rémont’s mandate comes a few days after a nuclear policy council, which gathered on Monday by Emmanuel Macron who had given rise to a pressure on EDF on the subject of the “cost control and the calendar” of the nuclear program, a pharaonic project over decades. The Nuclear Policy Council notably asked EDF “to present by the end of the year a engaging encryption, in costs and deadlines”, in order to avoid the repetition of a scenario in Flamanville, the Norman EPR site enamelled with cost and calendar slippages.
Upon her arrival at the head of the electrician, Luc Rémont has forcefully worked to defend the interests of the company ironed 100 % under the leg of the State, so that it becomes profitable again in order to identify the resources necessary for the revival of nuclear. For more than a year, its relations with its largest customers, French industrialists have degraded themselves very strongly. Criticized for electricity prices deemed too high, he also attracted the wrath of the state anxious to avoid deindustrialisation.