The finance bill for 2025 arrives in the Senate on Monday and the amendment on the increase in the electricity tax, desired by the government, will be discussed, among other things. The RN asks the government to renounce it, under penalty of voting for the motion of censure.
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While Michel Barnier receives Marine Le Pen in Matignon, Monday November 25 at 8:30 a.m. – first meeting in a series of meetings with the heads of the opposition parliamentary groups – theThe 2025 budget arrives in public session in the Senate, where it will be examined until December 12.
To reduce the country’s deficit to 5% of GDP in 2025, the government wants, among other things, to increase the tax on electricity which had been greatly reduced since the war in Ukraine, since today, the price of electricity is returned more or less to normal. But in the name of preserving the purchasing power of the French, Marine le Pen threatens to censure the government on the budget. As such, it asks several things and it makes electricity prices a red line.
However, the government has committed to lowering these electricity prices by 9% in 2025. It insists on the fact that for 80% of French people, prices will actually fall in February 2025. If it has planned to raise taxes, a trick is to adjust them according to the wholesale prices of electricity on the markets, until you keep this promise of a 9% reduction in regulated prices.
He plans to increase these taxes significantly, to go well beyond the 32 euros per megawatt hour that we had before the crisis. This would involve going up to 50 euros, knowing that today we are more at 22 euros per megawatt hour. The objective of the Barnier government is to bring a lot of money into the coffers since in total, these taxes must quickly bring in more than six billion euros. But Marine Le Pen insists: without this significant increase in taxes, the French could hope for a reduction of 20 or 30% in the prices on their bills.
Furthermore, this increase in taxes calls into question the coherence of public action. At the same time, taxes on gas remain significantly lower than those applied to electricity, even though gas is much more polluting. From a purely economic point of view, if the objective is to electrify our economy to make it cleaner, this decision to increase taxes therefore goes against the grain.
The future of the country is even at stake in terms of competitiveness, sovereignty and decarbonization. Certainly, thanks to nuclear programs, France has a historic head start, but with the arrival of Donald Trump, the question of the price of electricity is becoming a decisive argument for businesses more than ever. This is one of the elements that can encourage them to stay or not in France and not give in to relocations.
