France: the battle over wind power stirs up the election – FT

As France’s election season gathers steam, the fishermen from Saint-Brieuc on the north Brittany coast have had a stream of illustrious visitors, including the EU’s former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier. But instead of discussing Brexit and fishing, Barnier and other conservative politicians have focused on a different bugbear: a €2.4bn offshore wind farm project that has sparked such ire among locals that a flotilla took to the sea to protest when underwater construction work started earlier this year. Dubbing it a “failure” and a “disaster”, Barnier, who is also a former environment and agriculture minister, joined a chorus of demands for the project to be stopped. Barnier is one of the five politicians campaigning in the primary this week to choose the centre-right candidate in the presidential election in April. What would normally be a local dispute has spiralled into a polarising national election issue as France gears up for what could be a tumultuous campaign. Grumblings over the Saint-Brieuc plans have been swept up in a broader backlash against wind farms that is hogging airtime in television debates and has become a rallying cry on the right. Just weeks after the COP26 summit in Glasgow, when governments made bold pledges to reduce their emissions, the growing battle over wind power is becoming a crucial issue for France. Although support for wind power is strong among the French public, concerted opposition has already sharply slowed investment plans — even before the issue became so prominent in national politics.