PARIS — Candidates for next year’s French presidential election are seizing on the country’s record-breaking heat wave to put forward energy and climate proposals.
At an event hosted by the think tank Terra Nova in partnership with POLITICO, several left-wing presidential hopefuls — including former President François Hollande, former Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, member of the European Parliament Raphaël Glucksmann and Green party leader Marine Tondelier — outlined their strategies to move toward cleaner forms of energy and reduce France’s dependence on fossil fuels.
Cazeneuve, one of the most centrist-leaning voices within the French left, called for a “global European strategy” on energy, which would require joint borrowing at the EU level and setting up “mutual instruments” for member states. He also vowed to protect the EU’s internal energy market, which the far right wants to pull France out of.
Glucksmann stressed the urgency of getting France off the “leash” imposed by fossil fuels “to free the French people from decisions made by foreign leaders over whom we have no control,” citing the spike in energy prices that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.
