PARIS — Is France ready for a crisis that plunges it into darkness? The French government is planning to find out.

The government is looking to organize a tabletop simulation of a sudden, nationwide power outage in the second half of 2027, according to four people with direct knowledge of the exercise, who were granted anonymity to discuss plans that have not been publicly announced.

The exercise will involve the French electricity grid operators Enedis and RTE as well as several government departments and ministries and the French military administration. 

Its purpose will be to determine how the country would respond to a paralyzing electricity outage of the kind that hit Spain and Portugal in April 2025, or a major cyberattack targeting the power grid as Poland experienced last year — an act of sabotage Brussels has attributed to Russian intelligence services.

The simulation will test “the country’s ability to respond,” said one person familiar with preparations for the exercise, adding that it is intended to assess the time needed to restore power and the country’s ability to ensure the continuity of essential services.

The exercise was formally confirmed during an interministerial committee on national resilience on July 8. A detailed announcement should come before the end of the year.

The meeting notes outline other priorities, such as making sure the French state maintains access to goods considered “essential to ensuring the continuity of the state and the protection of the population.”

These include “emergency blankets, generators, medicines, telecommunications equipment, equipment for law enforcement, as well as rare and critical raw materials.”

Stress test

Crisis preparedness has turned into a political issue in France as record-breaking heat and wildfires are forcing the country to reckon with its ability to respond to emergencies. 

Last summer, the government updated the country’s National Resilience Strategy, a roadmap on how to “maintain the functions essential to collective life” in the face of war or natural disasters. 

Since the start of the summer, many French regions have faced unprecedented temperatures, with mercury levels setting multiple records in June. 

In the country’s southwest, out-of-control wildfires fueled by extreme heat and drought forced mass evacuations that affected more than 200,000 people.

In Paris, the mayor made a desperate plea to large-scale food retailers to mobilize ice stocks over fears that first responders would run out of much-needed cubes to cool down victims of heatstroke.

Opposition parties were quick to attack the government over what they described as a widespread lack of preparedness, forcing the executive to defend itself.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu also announced that the government would submit a bill to parliament to improve emergency response systems.

“We want to refocus fire and rescue services on their core mission and adapt our organization to the crises that lie ahead,” said Lecornu Sunday in an interview with La Tribune Dimanche.

LONDON — Andy Burnham entered Downing Street with a promise to give hard-pressed voters “breathing space” on the cost of living. Now he must show he can deliver. 

At the top of his list is finding a way to reduce stubbornly high energy bills — even as the Iran-U.S. war forces up prices and ministers are under pressure to cut their own departmental budgets. The new prime minister knows any intervention must make a real impact for voters if he is to turn Labour’s fortunes around. 

“You need to make an emotional connection with people,” said one senior government official, granted anonymity to talk candidly about Whitehall thinking. 

Britain’s new prime minister has already made one bid to show voters he is serious about tackling the problem: Removing VAT from household electricity bills, something he announced on his first day in No. 10. 

The move will knock less than £4 off the average monthly bill, ends after one year, and comes with a price tag of £850 million. Downing Street said it will be paid for through so-far unspecified Whitehall savings. 

But Burnham and his new Energy Secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, promised that the intervention is just a start. Cutting VAT is a “down payment” ahead of the winter, Fahnbulleh said. 

That means ministers have just weeks before Burnham’s first budget this fall to figure out what, if anything, can really ease the burden — and how to pay for it. 

Salami slicing 

“The fiscal space is going to be a challenge, and that is the case for any government,” said Sam Alvis, associate director for environment, energy security, and nature at the Labour-aligned Institute for Public Policy Research think tank. 

That’s because any intervention to bring down energy bills will have to be funded from already under-pressure Whitehall departments. 

“This government is going to have a look at the budget. Whether it chooses to do some priorities differently — that is an open question,” Alvis said. 

One option for Burnham is to slice more charges from electricity bills, as he did with VAT. But any savings could be quickly wiped out if, as expected, the Middle East crisis pushes up wholesale gas prices.

Forecasters at Cornwall Insight predict that average annual household bills will rise by two percent this fall, even after the VAT intervention. 

That leaves Burnham facing the same problems as the man he replaced, Keir Starmer. 

Starmer cut £150 off yearly bills last November by shifting some so-called green levies, used to fund a clean energy scheme, onto general taxation. By the summer, that cut had been swallowed up by higher prices driven by the Strait of Hormuz crisis. 

Nonetheless, Alvis said, this approach remains Burnham’s most realistic option. 

“We are now in a bit of a scenario of salami slicing, where you’re aggregating lots and lots of smaller bits,” he said. “There’s no one big thing that you can do that’s going to take over £100 off bills. So, it’s about accumulating all those things that you think you could possibly do in one go, so it becomes sizable and noticeable.” 

Decisions, decisions 

One of those options, proposed by the think tank Nesta and reportedly being considered by Burnham, involves shifting further green levies from electricity bills onto tax.  

It identified another £42 of savings from a yearly bill, costing the Treasury £1.7 billion per year for a decade. 

Every small cut helps consumers, insists Andrew Sissons, Nesta’s director of sustainable futures. The think tank has also proposed knocking £22 a year off bills by shifting the standing charge on gas — currently a fixed daily fee — onto the unit rate, which changes depending on how much energy a home uses. That would take a year to implement and would not cost the government a penny, Nesta says. 

But such moves must be accompanied by larger interventions if voters are to feel the benefit, he added. 

“The amount you’d need to cut people’s energy bills … for it to feel like a real difference is quite substantial,” he said. The government, he argued, should aim for a “big package.”  

If the government aims for larger changes, they would come with even greater costs.  

Nesta has suggested a one-off move to wipe out electricity debt, removing some bailout costs currently funded through bills, taking total annual bill savings to £130. But the Treasury would have to find £2.7 billion to fund that. 

“[We] shouldn’t ignore the fact that there are fiscal trade-offs. But if the government wants to prioritize energy bills, then this is the kind of step it needs to take,” Sissons added, pointing to their proposed levy change alongside the VAT cut.  

Things take time  

Net-zero policies will, ministers hope, bring down bills for good. But large-scale changes take years to implement. 

“Realistically, the only way to deeply, deeply help people is to get them solar panels, is to get them an EV [electric vehicle], potentially heat pumps in some houses as well,” said Alvis. 

This is another reason to opt for “salami slicing”, he said: To “alter the balance of electricity and gas prices, so that those clean technologies stack up and save people even more money.”  

Alex Bevan, a research fellow at the Future Governance Forum, agreed that big savings attached to the shift to green energy were still a way off.  

“There aren’t quick workarounds on whichever form of energy you choose to generate and deploy,” he said. But government must nonetheless “lock in the benefits [of clean energy],” he argued. 

The same official quoted above stressed that no decision had yet been made on how the government would intervene on bills. Asked whether the government favored a series of small policies or one big intervention, they said: “It doesn’t have to be binary. … It doesn’t have to be one or the other.”  

A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said: “The energy secretary’s focus is bringing bills down for good. We will tackle the cost of living to make life’s essentials affordable again and bring back hope.”

For now, Alvis insisted, Burnham has one thing going for him: He can operate in the knowledge voters accept international issues are pushing up costs. 

“The political point I would make is: By doing your best effort, you give yourself the space to have a conversation with the public,” he said. 

Home affairs ministers are meeting this morning as the fallout of the Ceuta crisis continues to roil Europe.

Last week’s sudden influx of migrants into the Spanish exclave — most of whom have since returned — sparked heated exchanges between European leaders. On the show, hosts Zoya Sheftalovich and Ian Wishart preview whether today’s emergency meeting can cool tensions, and what measures the Commission may propose to address concerns across the bloc.

Next, a drought in Hungary and Romania could grind nuclear power plants to a halt since the River Danube has fallen too low to cool their reactors. Budapest and Bucharest are on high alert over the risk of an energy crisis in the coming days.

Plus: The Belgium push to encourage young people to sign up for voluntary military service appears to have worked, as the program starting Sept. 1 is already fully booked.

Are you taking part in voluntary military service, in Belgium or elsewhere? We’re intrigued. Get in touch on our WhatsApp here or at +32 491 05 06 29.