Coal power plant: costs for the State, legal illegality… A report criticizes the reconversion of the Gardanne site

Did the State want to preserve social peace by artificially keeping the site of the Gardanne coal-fired power station (Bouches-du-Rhône) alive? The Court of Auditors made public this Wednesday its report on the shutdown of the last four industrial sites which produce electricity with coal: Cordemais (Loire-Atlantique), Gardanne (Bouches-du-Rhône), Le Havre (Seine-Maritime) and Saint-Avold (Moselle).

If the Sages of the rue de Cambon recognize that the management of these closures “may have seemed chaotic” because of the postponements of the shutdowns – two power plants, Cordemais and Saint-Avold, are still in operation until 2027, while they should all have stopped in 2022 – the Court of Auditors is particularly critical of the management of that of Gardanne.

By Editor