In the early days of the Ukraine war, when spot gas prices soared across Europe, President Macron cockily referred to how France's nuclear power stations made them immune to the energy crisis.
In recent days though, Macron has been asking French businesses to conserve energy. What's changed?
26 of France's 57 nuclear power stations are offline. Part of the problem is drought - the river water needed to cool the reactors isn't there. In addition, they've discovered cracks in the tubes that need fixing.
France's nuclear power stations are old, many built in the 1960's, half a century ago.
When the pipes get old, they crack. What typically happens is a small radioactive leak is detected. On inspection a crack is discovered. This triggers a full inspection of all the pipes at all the plants, and thousands of cracked pipes are discovered.
This in turn means the plant needs to be shut down so the cracks are fixed - which could take up to 24 months.
So France is importing electricity, mainly from Britain. Prompting an ironic smile from the Brits, given that less than a year ago, France was threatening to cut off electricity to Britain over Brexit.
What will happen in winter when Britain reduces exports of electricity to protect it's domestic market?
Almost half of their reactors are offline?
They discovered cracks in the tubes - these are old reactors - so they are offline to be fixed.