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PARIS ― France wants everyone buying French solar panels — and it’s not being subtle.
“I call on big decision-makers, 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.
The move also comes shortly after the EU finalized the Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA), which indirectly encourages EU countries to buy European solar panels, something France desired.
France wants to produce 40 percent of the solar panels it uses locally, Le Maire said, presenting it as an NZIA goal. However, the EU law set production targets for the entire bloc, not individual countries.
France is also providing state aid to several solar projects in the country, including tax credits worth up to €200 million for two solar panel factories. And it’s easing rules to install solar panels on farmland.
In parallel, the European Commission earlier this week launched a probe into Chinese-owned solar power in Romania over alleged illegal subsidies.
