France Publishes Roadmap to Phase Out Fossil Fuels Entirely by 2050

The French government has released its Roadmap for Transitioning away from Fossil Fuels, outlining plans to end coal consumption by 2030, oil by 2045, and natural gas by 2050. Fossil fuels currently account for approximately 65% of France's greenhouse gas emissions and represented nearly 60% of its final energy consumption in 2023.

The roadmap was launched at the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia, convened following COP30 in November 2025. France's coal-to-oil-to-gas phaseout targets are embedded in its National Low Carbon Strategy and the Multiannual Energy Planning framework. Transport electrification is a central pillar, with a target for 66% of new car sales to be electric by 2030, alongside investment in EV charging infrastructure, heavy vehicle electrification, and a 25% increase in public transport use by the same year.

Buildings represent a major fossil gas consumption category in France. The roadmap prohibits installation of gas boilers in new commercial and residential buildings by the end of 2026 and sets a target for installing one million heat pumps per year by 2030. Building renovation for energy efficiency is another key lever. Decarbonised electricity generation plans include building new nuclear reactors, extending existing plant lifespans, reaching 15 GW of installed offshore wind power by 2035, adding 1.3 GW of onshore wind annually, and tripling installed solar photovoltaic capacity by 2035.

France plans to replace 85 terawatt-hours of gas imports with domestically produced decarbonised energy by 2030, representing 20% of its gas imports. Hydrogen, biofuels, and biomethane also feature prominently in the energy transition plan, with targets for 8 GW of electrolyser capacity by 2035, a sixfold increase in biomethane production, and double biofuel consumption by 2035. The roadmap also frames the fossil fuel transition as an energy sovereignty issue, given that more than half of France's fossil fuel supply is sourced from abroad.

Key figure — 85 TWh of gas imports to be replaced by domestic clean energy by 2030