TotalEnergies to 'stick to its guns' on renewable energy despite EU election results

Chief executive Patrick Pouyanne says French supermajor will continue with renewables expansion

French supermajor TotalEnergies will continue with its expansion of renewable power, even after the results of the recent European Union elections showed a strong upswing in far-right parties that want to derail the bloc’s Green Deal.

“We have a strategy and we’re sticking to it – energy is about the long term,”

TotalEnergies chief execurtive Patrick Pouyanne was quoted as saying by the Bloomberg news agency at the Automobile Club de France in Paris on Monday.

“We’ll need more electricity, which is an energy that’s growing. While I’m not certain it will be the case over the medium to long term for oil and gas.”

Unlike other oil and gas majors, TotalEnergies has not slowed down its green power expansion, and the company’s France head, Isabelle Patrier, recently even slammed her home country over the slow speed of renewables growth.

As recently as Friday, the company emerged as one of the winners of Germany’s latest offshore wind tender.

The political party families backing the EU’s Green Deal — the conservatives, social democrats and liberals along with the Greens — still have a majority in the European Parliament after elections earlier this month.

But far-right and often climate sceptic parties were the biggest winners and some of them are trying to sabotage the deal, which they consider to be a pet project by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen — who is a conservative but in the past years pushed through a green agenda.

In France in particular, the policies of the National Rally — which was the most voted party in the EU elections — are very hostile towards wind energy, ranging from a demanded moratorium of new onshore wind to a dismantling of existing arrays. The party has a chance to wind parliamentary elections that start next week.