French PM Announces Plans to Phase Out Gas Boilers in New Buildings
Addressing the nation directly, Lecornu drew a sharp line in the sand: "by the end of 2026, it will no longer be possible to install gas boilers in new buildings."
The policy arrives against a backdrop of mounting anxiety over energy security, with recent Middle East tensions serving as a stark reminder of how geopolitical instability can ripple directly into French household energy bills. Lecornu made no effort to soften the warning:
"As long as we depend on oil and gas, we will continue to pay the price of other people's wars."
The premier insisted that energy strategy must be elevated from a market consideration to a pillar of national security — a framing that underscored the urgency driving the government's accelerated timeline.
To ease the transition away from gas and oil-based heating, Paris will dramatically scale up public subsidies for heat pumps, with an ambitious target of deploying up to one million units per year by 2030. Existing financial support programs will be redirected to fast-track the broader electrification of French homes.
Social housing sits at the heart of the equity dimension of the plan. The government has committed to converting 2 million social housing units away from gas by 2050, with priority given to the most financially vulnerable households — a direct response to criticism that green transitions disproportionately burden lower-income communities.
On the macroeconomic scale, France has set a target of substituting 85 terawatt-hours of gas consumption — equivalent to its entire current gas import volume — with domestically generated energy by 2030.
Lecornu positioned the electrification agenda as both an economic and patriotic imperative: "Electrifying France is both an individual and collective necessity," he declared, pledging that the rollout would be managed through long-term structural planning to ensure that "no one is left behind."
The package extends beyond heating. The government is simultaneously pressing to accelerate France's shift to electric vehicles, targeting a ratio of two out of every three new cars sold to be electric by 2030 — backed by direct subsidies and social leasing programs designed to bring low-emission transport within reach of lower-income households.
Lecornu confirmed that individual ministers would present the full legislative and financial architecture of the reforms in the coming days.
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