The French government is putting a plan in place to deal with the looming energy crisis as fears rise of power cuts. A directive will be sent to regional police chiefs to anticipate scheduled power cuts, which could affect 60 percent of the population in the worst-case scenario. In order to cope with possible power cuts, some factories will produce at night for several weeks. At the moment, half of the country's reactors are offline because of ongoing or delayed maintenance or corrosion problems. The new generation of power stations has yet to be built. Meanwhile, Europe is scrambling to replace Russian gas supplies since Moscow cut them off in retaliation for EU sanctions imposed over its special military operation in Ukraine.