France's economy minister extends electricity subsidies to 2025

The French government will continue subsidising electricity bills into 2025 as prices suffer from Russia's invasion of Ukraine and part of the country's nuclear reactor fleet remaining offline, the finance minister said Friday.

The electricity tariff shield, put in place by the French government since October 2021 to limit bill increases, will be maintained for another two years, Minister of Economy Bruno Le Maire announced on 21 April, 2023. © AFP - Loic Venance

With bills still "very high" compared to late 2021, "I'm giving us two years to end" electricity subsidies by early 2025, Bruno Le Maire told French broadcaster LCI - a day after vowing to slash France's debt and deficits with cuts to public spending.

State-owned energy firm EDF produced its lowest amount of electricity in 30 years last year, as many nuclear reactors - the heart of France's energy system - have been taken offline due to corrosion discovered in emergency cooling systems.

Energy prices have also been mounting across Europe from the throttling of the flow of Russian gas since Moscow attacked Ukraine last year.

Increases in electricity bills have been less sharp in France thanks to government subsidies, at four percent in 2022 and 15 percent this year - at a projected cost of 45 billion euros in 2023.

No longer subsidies for gas

But Le Maire said there was "no longer a need to keep up" subsidies for gas, as prices have fallen back, vowing to end them this year.

The finance minister had on Thursday said it was time to cut public spending to rein in annual budget deficits and France's overall debt, one of the highest burdens in the 27-member European Union.

Both figures had swollen from Paris' "whatever it takes" response to the coronavirus crisis and the energy price surge.

"It's vital to speed up debt reduction" between now and the end of President Emmanuel Macron's second term in 2027, Le Maire insisted in an interview with regional daily Courrier Picard.