France is shifting into a brand new section of cryptocurrency adoption, because the nation’s far-right political celebration, Rassemblement Nationwide (RN), is reportedly drafting a brand new regulation that might enable unused nuclear energy to fuel Bitcoin mining operations. In accordance with French newspaper Le Monde, celebration chief and three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen promoted the plan throughout a go to to the Flamanville nuclear plant on March 11, calling it a sensible option to flip wasted electrical energy into “safe and intensely worthwhile” digital belongings.
France Pushes New Plan To Mine Bitcoin With Nuclear Power
Rassemblement Nationwide’s proposal is now probably the most talked-about crypto developments in France. The celebration argues that since France typically produces extra electrical energy than it could possibly use, the additional energy shouldn’t go to waste. Main the cost is RN lawmaker Aurélien Lopez-Liguori. He has drafted a invoice to put in Bitcoin mining gear at nuclear websites run by Électricité de France (EDF), the nation’s state-owned energy firm.
The proposal goals to redirect the nation’s unused nuclear vitality, as much as one gigawatt of surplus energy from these vegetation, straight into Bitcoin mining amenities. Since France generates over 70% of its electrical energy from nuclear vitality, when provide exceeds demand, vitality firms promote the additional electrical energy at a loss and even pay neighboring nations to take it off their arms.
As an alternative of promoting the additional energy at a loss, France would use it for one thing extra beneficial: mine Bitcoin and preserve the earnings. The invoice, submitted to the French Nationwide Meeting on July 11, 2025, features a five-year pilot program that can enable energy producers to arrange mining operations proper at nuclear vegetation with internal projections that might herald between $100 million and $150 million every year.
A Political Turnaround: From Crypto Skeptics To Advocates
The Rassemblement Nationwide’s push for Bitcoin mining marks a dramatic shift within the celebration’s stance on cryptocurrency. In 2016, Marine Le Pen was strongly in opposition to crypto, warning that it will strip residents of their monetary management and provides extra energy to world banks, calling for a complete ban on its use in France.
Nevertheless, by 2022, Le Pen had begun to melt her tone, displaying help for regulated crypto use in finance. Now in 2025, she’s overtly backing Bitcoin mining as a part of a nationwide technique, which displays how far each her celebration and the broader political dialog have developed on crypto. After the same proposal failed in June 2025, Lawmaker Lopez-Liguori reworked the draft to focus extra on nationwide infrastructure and financial restoration, claiming the plan would assist make France extra economically unbiased whereas fixing a long-standing vitality drawback.
If passed, France would develop into the primary nation in Europe to formally hyperlink state-backed Bitcoin mining with nuclear vitality, setting an instance for different nations trying to monetize extra renewable or nuclear energy.
featured picture from Unsplash, chart from Tradingview.com
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