Friday afternoon, the Prime Minister signed with the German Chancellor a “joint declaration of energy solidarity”. A few hours later, before the National Assembly, she defended herself against a new censorship motion filed by the LFI group, before triggering a sixth 49.3.
by Matthieu Goar, Mariama Darame and Jérémie Lamothe
There are days like that. Symptomatic moments when an entire period is condensed in a few hours. Friday, November 25, Matignon, place of landing of all the subjects and, sometimes, of all crises, lived a season in accelerated.
Breakfast of the Prime Minister in Paris with women engaged against violence, departure at midday to Berlin to meet Chancellor Olaf Scholz and evoke the thorny gas and electricity file, evening to The National Assembly to face a motion of censorship and announce a new 49.3 … “We will need energy today”, we slipped at the end of the morning, in Matignon. In barely a dozen hours, Elisabeth Borne juggled with the hot files that have punctuated every week since taking office. As a perfect summary of a stormy period.
3 p.m., in Berlin. The French Prime Minister is greeted by the German Chancellor. In the courtyard, the big Christmas tree is off. Sobriety obliges, it will only be lit four hours a day, against twenty-four hours a day in 2021. An hour and a quarter later, after an opposite interview and then in extended format, the two chiefs of government sign a “joint declaration of energy solidarity” in front of the cameras “.
Faced with the risks of shortages, the two countries “undertake to implement concrete mutual support measures”: in other words, France will continue to provide gas, as it has been doing for weeks, to a Germany Strongly affected by the cessation of Russian imports, and Berlin will deliver electricity to Hegagon, forced to import it for the first time in forty-two years due to the stop of many nuclear reactors. “Friends support themselves in adversity,” sums up Mr. Scholz.
Avoid the black scenario of electricity cuts
surrounded by her close guard on the plane, Elisabeth Borne had refined each word from the joint declaration. The fruit of long hours of negotiations between the two countries to formalize this device, which was not to be formalized until January 2023. The Germans wanted to ensure that this aid would not harm their ability to supply their southern regions, far from the fields of northern wind turbines.
“Germany and France needed this agreement and it is a fine example of solidarity in the face of the crisis, confides the Prime Minister. We have a duty to continue to show that Europe continues to protect its fellow citizens and its businesses, as was the case during the COVID, even if, at the moment, it can sometimes happen to have divergent interests due to very different energy mix. “
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