International audienceThe French wholesale market is set to expand in the next few years under European pressure and national decisions. In this article, we assess the forecasting ability of several classes of time-series models for electricity wholesale spot prices at a day-ahead horizon in France. Electricity spot prices display a strong seasonal pattern, particularly in France, given the high share of electric heating in housing during winter time. To deal with this pattern, we implement a double temporal segmentation of the data. For each trading period and season, we use a large number of specifications based on market fundamentals: linear regressions, Markov-switching (MS) models and threshold models with a smooth transition. An extensive evaluation on French data shows that modelling each season independently leads to better results. Among nonlinear models, MS models designed to capture the sudden and fast-reverting spikes in the price dynamics yield more accurate forecasts. Finally, pooling forecasts give more reliable results

The debate over a common European energy policy, its necessity and its establishment has been going on for a number of decades. The discussions have been recently brought back into the spotlight by the evolution of energy market fundamentals and the taking into account of environmental protection. In spite of the energy diversity of the European Union, a common vision has always been shared by all over energy development for the future. The achievements of the internal market, the fight against climate change, and supply security are the common energy battles that call for a solution in common. This policy remains the responsibility of the States, but decisions vary from one country to the next. To move from a shared vision to a European energy policy, large steps are necessary. The European construction is making evolve the "typically French vision" of energy policy. France was often characterized as the "black duck" in the European Union. In the political context of president elections, the energy debate in French is of a high interest. This paper discusses the main issues with the French energy policy in the emerging European energy policy.

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<p class="ESRBODY">The French wholesale market is set to expand in the next few years under European pressures and national decisions. In this paper, we investigate the performance of the French wholesale power market to examine whether or not the equilibrium outcomes are competitive. After a literature review on the different existing models, an extension of the Bresnahan - Lau (1982) method in panel data framework is employed with hourly dataset during 2009-2012 on the French wholesale market. The model-based results suggest that though market power is found statistically significant in several peak-load hours, it stays at very low level. On average, no market power is exercised over the examined period. These results correspond with the extremely regulated wholesale power market in France. It is of high interest given the future evolution of the French wholesale market which will be among the biggest in Europe in 2016 after the end of regulated tariffs for all firms.</p>

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