France will build new nuclear reactors to help the country lessen its dependence on foreign countries for its energy supplies, meet global warming targets and keep prices under control, President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday.

With concerns over purchasing power topping opinion polls five months before the presidential election, at a time of soaring energy prices, Macron said the decision to go for new reactors was essential to keep prices "reasonable."

"We are going, for the first time in decades, to relaunch the construction of nuclear reactors in our country and continue to develop renewable energies," Macron said in a televised address to the nation.

This was meant "to guarantee France's energy independence, to guarantee our country's electricity supply and achieve our objectives, in particular carbon neutrality in 2050," he said.

As Europe grapples with steep increases in energy prices, France is taking a different path from neighbours like Germany.

Germany responded to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan by accelerating its national exit scheme for reactors.

Macron gave no details, but his government is expected to announce the construction of up to six new pressurised-water reactors within the coming weeks.

France, which derives the majority of its electricity from nuclear power, is currently building only one new third-generation EPR nuclear reactor Flamanville in Normandy. But work on the site, which began in 2007, has still not been completed. 

Early in his mandate, Macron pledged to reduce nuclear's contribution to France's energy mix to 50 percent from 75 percent by 2035.

(With input from Reuters, AFP)

(Cover: A man watches French President Emmanuel Macron giving an address on television in a bar in Bayonne, southwestern France, November 9, 2021. /CFP)