PARIS ― France wants everyone buying French solar panels — and it’s not being subtle.
“I call on big decisionmakers, energy companies and solar parks developers … to massively resort to ‘Made in France’ panels,” France’s Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said Friday as he visited a solar park in southern France equipped with Malaysian panels.
Le Maire said favoring French-made solar products over their foreign rivals was the goal of France’s “solar pact,” a new initiative to revive the wilting sector, which is losing out to heavily subsidized Chinese competition. The initiative technically encourages businesses to buy European panels, but Le Maire was explicit: He wants France to come first.
Le Maire’s urgings may run afoul of EU rules. In principle, the EU bans measures that favor one country’s companies over another for public contracts.
