France needs to protect its nuclear power at all costs

Emmanuel Macron has decided to immerse himself in the controversy. In a joint interview with the major European newspapersthe French president has attacked the waterline of the Spanish energy model, describing the debate on the lack of interconnections as “false.” But behind his words lies a geopolitical anxiety: we are not facing a technical criticism of the stability of the network, but rather a territorial defense of a nuclear power. that sees its hegemony threatened for cheap energy from its southern neighbor.

The direct accusation. “Spain’s problem is that it has a 100% renewable model that its own domestic network does not support,” Macron categorically sentenced The Country. The president insisted that the Spanish blackout “has nothing to do with interconnections,” but rather with the intrinsic instability of renewables. This diagnosis comes at a calculated time: according to the Financial TimesMacron uses external threats – the Greenland crisis and tensions with the US – to demand “Eurobonds” and financial centralism, asking for more Europe for his debt while building physical walls in the Pyrenees.

The nuclear bunker. The underlying motivation is the economic survival of Paris. France aspires to be the “battery of Europe” and its nuclear investment plan of 300 billion euros desperately needs profitability. If Spain floods the market with cheap solar energy, the French nuclear model – centralized and expensive – loses competitiveness. Macron is already moving to protect himself: has sealed a pact with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to classify “pink hydrogen” (nuclear) as green, shielding its technology from the southern solar boom.

An island by decree. The data refute the Elysée speech about self-sufficiency. Spain continues to be an “energy island” with barely 2.8% interconnection, very far from the EU’s 15% objective. As the ministers of Spain and Portugal pointed out in a letterFrance has explicitly excluded key Aragon and Navarra projects from its 2025-2035 network plan. What’s more, Ember data show thatDuring the blackout, Spain even exported energy to France because the French reactors were stopped, proving that the bottleneck is the lack of output, not generation.

The Danish mirror. The fallacy about “renewable instability” collapses when looking north. with more 80% of wind generationdoes not suffer blackouts because it is ultra-interconnected to North Poolinstantly balancing its load with Germany and Norway. Meanwhile, the “nuclear stability” that Macron preaches is failing: last summer, the French reactors stopped not due to lack of wind, but because the Rhône and Garonne rivers They were too hot to cool them, skyrocketing prices in Europe while the Spanish solar plant continued to operate.

Solar asphyxiation. The French blockade has a tangible cost. Without interconnections, Spain suffers curtailment —throwing 7% of their clean energy in the trash because it doesn’t fit on the grid—which sinks prices to zero and ruins investors. In his interview with The CountryMacron calls for a “European awakening” to not be vassals of China or the US. However, by keeping the Pyrenees closed, it effectively turns the Iberian Peninsula into an energy vassal of France, preventing the same strategic autonomy that it claims to defend.

Image | House of Lords and freepik

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