Cleantech: after the supply-side push, time to tackle demand
What industrial policy should we pursue to support domestic cleantech, to secure our energy and industrial sovereignty? For Benoît Leguet, France – within Europe – already has solid foundations, and can position itself as a leader. On one condition: driving demand.
The France 2030 investment plan was built around an ambitious bet: transforming historic industrial strengths – steel, automotive, aerospace – into competitive pillars of a decarbonising economy.
Five years on, the results can be seen, and new green industrial ecosystems are emerging. Battery gigafactories have been built. ArcelorMittal has taken a final investment decision for an electric arc furnace in Dunkirk. A solid pipeline of synthetic aviation fuel projects is taking shape, positioning France as a potential European leader in sustainable fuels. These are not negligible achievements.
But without a qualitative leap in our cleantech industrial policy, we risk being unable to go much further. Whether for batteries, green steel or sustainable fuels, subsidising projects is not enough: it is the entire value chain that needs to be secured.
Neglected links in the value chain
In each of these sectors, the upstream sectors remain dangerously exposed. Battery gigafactories were built before supply chains for critical inputs were secured – leaving production dependent on imported materials, predominantly from China.
On the sustainable fuels side, in the absence of long-term offtake contracts with airlines, not a single project has yet crossed the threshold of a final investment decision. The conditions are nonetheless in place for France to master the first building blocks of this value chain, from low-carbon hydrogen production to final fuel synthesis. If it ends up importing Chinese e-methanol – one of the priorities of China’s latest five-year plan – for simple conversion on French soil, it will retain only the last link in the chain.
The mistake is to allow the gap between announced ambition and the actual construction of value chains to widen, leaving outside competitors to rush in and fill the gaps in the chain.
Demand-side steering and budgetary coherence
What needs to change? Too long focused on supply, industrial policy must now be structured around genuine demand-side steering: environmental and “Made in Europe” criteria in public procurement, long-term contracts to secure initial markets, standards to align private purchasing with industrial strategy.
Budgetary coherence is also at stake. In a context of tight constraints, every public euro must earn its place. It is increasingly difficult to justify a budgetary arrangement that still channels nearly €2 billion a year in tax advantages for corporate fleets towards combustion-engine models – all the more so in the current energy context. And while the social leasing scheme announced by the government is indispensable in this same context, it will become difficult to justify such a scheme if only 18% of the vehicles leased are assembled in France.
French sovereignty runs through Brussels
The challenge is not to spend more – it is to stop subsidising against our own objectives. And the most powerful lever available to France lies less with Bercy than with Brussels. The Industrial Accelerator Act proposed by the Commission in March 2026 is precisely the framework that France must help shape and champion. It is in the intelligent articulation of national and European tools that industrial strategy becomes durable.
France has the innovators, the industrial base and the policy foundations to contribute to Europe’s green reindustrialisation. The question is whether we consolidate that position – or whether we allow the gap between ambition and execution to become an opportunity for others. Industry, decarbonisation and sovereignty must now be placed firmly at the heart of the political debate ahead of the 2027 election – without forgetting to act before then.
