Electricity prices set to rise by 10% for most French consumers

Electricity prices for over 20 million French households are set to rise by 10% from August – an announcement that the opposition in parliament has heavily criticised.

Electricity prices have skyrocketed across Europe over the past two years, with France, in particular, seeing an increase due to the European Union’s collective decision to move away from Russian gas and part of France’s nuclear fleet being at a standstill.

However, while the French benefited from a so-called “tariff shield” that capped bills since 1 February, bills will increase again from 1 August and be capped at a 10% rise for households and businesses.

While the tariff shield was first introduced in 2021, electricity bills were capped at 4% from 1 February 2022 to January and then at 15% from February to the end of July.

This time, the increase is an average for all regulated energy tariffs and may differ depending on the contract and when electricity is consumed.

The tariff shield, which will now have been increased several times, is set to be phased out by the end of 2024, Public Action and Accounts Minister Gabriel Attal said on 13 July.

Losses incurred due to the shield between 2021 and 2023 are estimated at over €110 billion, according to the government, with electricity prices customers of EDF’s regulated electricity tariffs having risen by an average of 31% since the end of 2021.

Yet “France is the European country that has protected its citizens the most from the rise in energy prices over the last two years”, said French Energy Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher when questioned by the far-right MP Jordan Guitton on Tuesday.

According to the Belgian Federal Commission for Electricity and Gas Regulation, French electricity prices are still among the lowest in Europe, ahead of Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK.

It’s “scandalous […], shameful”, Fabien Roussel, MP and National Secretary of the French Communist Party – currently in opposition – told the press.

According to Bertrand Pancher, chairman of the independent centre-right group LIOT, the tariff should depend on households’ incomes – a proposal also backed by the Greens.

(Paul Messad| EURACTIV.fr)