Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo recently announced that all municipal establishments in the city will turn off lighting at 10 pm from September 23 to save energy. Media sources stated that according to Anne, this measure will be applied to all public buildings, including municipal museums, the town halls of each Parisian arrondissement and tourist attractions, such as the Eiffel Tower. Sources added that the Eiffel tower which remains illuminated till 1 pm with white lights every hour, will go dark after 11:45 pm according to the new plan. They added that this will help the city to reduce its power consumption by 4 percent.
Anne told media sources that all buildings owned by the City of Paris will dial heating down from 19 degrees celsius to 18 degrees celsius during the day and 12 degrees celsius for nights and weekends. Nursing homes and kindergartens will be exceptions. Water temperature in the city’s 40 swimming pools will also be reduced by one-degree celsius.
Anne added that the objective of this new ‘energy sobriety plan’ is to further reduce the city’s consumption by 10 per cent, the equivalent of the ‘energy consumption of 226 schools.’ Sources said that the mayor also called on the state to ‘do the same thing’ for national monuments, and the owners of private monuments to take steps ‘to move in the same direction.’
France, like many other European countries, is facing an energy crisis ahead of the winter season. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne has already announced that rolling blackouts are possible this winter for companies. In early September, Minister for Energy Transition Agnes Pannier-Runacher was quoted as saying that the country’s strategic gas reserves would be 100 per cent filled by November 1.