The Prime Minister of France announced yesterday that the French people should expect natural gas prices to rise 500% over 2021 prices, and electricity to rise 1000% over 2021 prices . . . next year.
Élisabeth Borne is a French politician who has served as Prime Minister of France since May 2022. A civil engineer, government official and manager of state enterprises in the transport and construction sectors, Borne previously served as minister of transport and minister of ecology.
She announced yesterday that prices for natural gas and electricity will skyrocket throughout France next year. This, due to economic sanctions being applied against Russia over its Special Military Operation inside Ukraine.
For decades, Russia has supplied cheap, plentiful natural gas to most of Europe. But when Russia drew a red line at the idea of Ukraine joining NATO, and when Ukraine began using its army to attack civilians in the states of Luhansk and Donetsk (collectively called The Donbas), Russia felt forced to take action. They entered Ukraine on February 24, 2022 to "de-Nazify and De-militarize" Ukraine.
For some reason, known only to God, France, the rest of Europe, and the United States, sided with the Nazi regime in Ukraine and began sanctioning Russia. No one in the US or European Union (EU) would be buying Russian natural gas or oil.
This forced most of Europe to try to get natural gas from other places. But those other places were already supplying much of the rest of the world. So when all the new buyers came from Europe, prices skyrocketed.
Now, people in France, and the rest of Europe, are seeing Utility bills that are about TEN TIMES HIGHER, because utilities use natural gas to generate electricity. The utilities are passing-along the increased price they must pay for the natural gas and it is forcing people throughout Europe to choose whether they eat, or have lights on.
This winter, everything will get all that much worse, when homeowners will have to choose between eating and heating. It is now widely predicted that some people in Europe, unable to pay, could literally freeze to death in their own homes because prices are so high.
For some reason, elected public officials in France and elsewhere in Europe, seem to think this is an acceptable position to be in.
Many, however, say that supporting NAZIS in Ukraine is untenable from the start, and freezing Europeans to death in their homes because the self-inflicted sanctions have raised prices so much, is an absurdity.
There is now political push-back from the general public against the economic sanctions that have caused this. Whether that push-back becomes strong enough to cause public servant government officials to change their actions, remains to be seen.
