France's Macronenergy

France's new president has plans to transform his country's energy market. They are on a breathtaking scale

Among all the topics that were debated during the 2017 general elections in France, energy was certainly one of the most discreet. That was frustrating, especially as the candidates offered a variety of options: on the right, François Fillon and Marine Le Pen favoured extending the lifespan of nuclear reactors built in the 1980s. Le Pen also proposed a moratorium on wind energy and Fillon pledged to end all electricity production from fossil fuels. On the left, both main candidates, Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Benoît Hamon, offered to phase out nuclear power and move towards 100% renewable energy by 2050. It was a display of imagination from a political class that was once overwhelmingly pro-nucl