"It's not too late," says Sébastien Jumel

The pilot project for the deployment of seven tidal turbines off Cherbourg in Normandy, driven by EDF and Naval Energies, could be called into question after Naval Energies announced that it had stopped investing in this technology, indicated Naval Energies Friday, July 27, 2018.

"We will not provide" tidal turbines and "this project is extinguished with the Naval Energies shutdown of its activities in tidal turbines," said AFP a door Naval Group subsidiary

EDF and DCNS (now Naval Group) were chosen by the State in 2014 to develop this pilot fleet, named Normandy Hydro, and located 3.5 km off Goury (Manche)

The seven tidal turbines of 2 megawatts and 16 meters in diameter were to be built by OpenHydro, an Irish company bought by Naval Group, and now placed in bankruptcy.

"There is no inevitability: what Naval Group claims to do, the Government can undo, since the state holds more than 60% of the marine industry group. Naval Group's announcement to abandon investments in tidal turbines, just weeks after the inauguration of the Cherbourg plant, may be contradicted by a government decision. We solemnly call on the Minister of the Economy, the Minister for the Ecological Transition and the President of Normandy to sit down at a table with the employee representatives, the group management and the local authorities directly concerned, Cherbourg and the Department of the Channel to review this decision dictated by a short-sighted shareholder logic, to re-examine it in the light of the real issues of tidal energy for our country ", react Sebastien Jumel, PCF deputy of the Seine- Maritime, and Céline Brulin, his communist colleague in the Senate.

"These issues are industrial, they are climatic, they also affect national sovereignty," say the two elected communists who ask the state to quickly review its copy . On an official trip to Guyana, Sébastien Lecornu, Secretary of State to Nicolas Hulot, has not – yet – commented on the decision of Naval Group. His "boss" at the Ministry of Ecology, Nicolas Hulot, did not comment on this. A deafening silence

"At a time when the multiannual programming of energy, which will engage France for the next 10 years, can not be accepted, we can not admit that our country is depriving itself of the potential of tidal in the composition of an energy mix under public control that would allow us to better meet the requirements of the fight against global warming, based on an argument of immediate profitability. Must we remember that France has not built its energy sovereignty without considerable public investment? ", Recall Sebastien Jumel and Céline Brulin.

" So that several million euros of public money, with a significant contribution of the Normans, have been invested in the development of an industrial tool for the tidal turbine in Cherbourg, which has just been inaugurated, it can not be accepted that this tool is sacrificed by a decision that responds to an immediate profitability calculation, a profit calculation, a shareholder calculation.

While renewable energies offer great potential to France, we can not can admit that one of the jewels of our industry, 60% owned by the State, take the decision to give up this industrial development opportunity when other countries, no better armed than In terms of know-how and public power, they make this bet for the future. This calculation is that of decision-makers who would be comfortable with a France without factories. We do not, "they add.

" We can not admit, finally, that in the energy field, our country relies more and more on private logic. The Naval Group unions had warned of the risks underlying the spin-off of the unit in charge of the tidal stream project. This risk is true today. Since it is a question of pursuing long-term investments, the ship Naval Group, with the approval of the State as its majority shareholder, prefers immediate profitability to the stakes of the future for our country and abandons all the more easily this program is controlled by a subsidiary. "

Céline Brulin and Sébastien Jumel therefore expressly ask the Minister of the Economy, the Minister of Ecological Transition« to renounce what would be a historical error. "" We therefore ask the Government, the State shareholder to immediately suspend the effects of the announcement made by the management of Naval Group, we ask the President of Normandy to defend more vigorously the interests of the Normans and to get the Government to organize a round table on the future of tidal turbines with all national and regional actors. When you have the majority of the capital of a company you decide, when you have granted millions of euros of public money for an industrial project, you are also entitled to participate in the decision. There is no inevitability. "