2012 to 2050, which energy policy for France?

Energy is a major issue in today's political debate. However, the debate is very often dominated by preconceived ideas and irrationality, whereas policies should be based on facts and numbers. As a learned body, the French Physical Society wishes to participate in the public debate. Its energy-environment committee has published a short book aimed at providing factual information. This article is a summary of the book. Looking at available data and forecasts, it appears that: first, a mitigation of energy consumption is mandatory in developed countries and secondly, it will be impossible for a single technology to solve all the energy problems. 6 energy scenarios for 2050 are considered for France, they are derived from possible political choices, from business as usual (BAU) implying undesirable environmental consequences to enforced energy consumption reductions with potential negative effects on the economy. 2 scenarios are nuclear-free. All the scenarios are compared with the data from 2010 in terms of energy production (heat, electricity, total final energy, total primary energy, and primary energy per capita) and greenhouse gas releases