There was wry amusement when EDF Energy nailed its colours to London's Olympic bid several years ago. The French-owned electricity distributor seemed to be protesting its local loyalty just a bit too hard, not least because its parent, Electricité de France, was solidly behind the Paris bid for the 2012 Games.

No one at the time guessed that the owner of London's electricity grid had its eye on more than a contract to illuminate a velodrome for a fortnight. That long-term view tells you everything you need to know about EDF, about France's nuclear power industry and about the French Government's energy strategy. Sadly, it also explains why the Government felt it had no choice but to hand over the commanding heights of Britain's electricity industry to a foreign company controlled by a foreign government.

Centrica did a valiant job of flying the flag for a British solution to British Energy's problem but it could not compete. It has no experience of building nuclear plants and little to offer except a hunger for more electricity. As owner of British Gas it is short of the power it sells to homes - both gas and electricity - and it wants desperately to expand its business “upstream” into the source of the electrons and molecules. Centrica is scouting Africa for gas supplies and its consolation prize, a promised quarter share of an EDF-controlled British Energy, will help to balance its electricity portfolio.

Energy is all about integration and balancing risk: the risk of being oversupplied if you lack customers, or the risk of being short of fuel if you lack oil wells and power stations. Those with good memories will recall that Britain did not believe in integration. We smashed our utilities into bits in the name of competition. British Gas lost its gas wells (to become Centrica) and power generators were prised from electricity distribution companies. It worked well for a time. Britain was an island floating on a balloon of North Sea gas and the price of gas and electricity tumbled.

So inexpensive was power that British Energy nearly went bust, its nukes unable to compete with the cheap gas-fired power market. The Government rescued the firm and here we are today, with North Sea gasfields depleted and oil at $100 a barrel, watching in embarrassment as a French state-controlled power company, a tower of integrated, upstream-downstream strength, saves our bacon.

It would be unfair to blame the Blair-Brown regime for not having foreseen the surge in energy prices. France has a nuclear industry because it believed energy was vital. It planned accordingly and was not distracted by political fashion, ideology or philistine politicians who thought that energy just happened when you flicked a switch. We hope the French will build these new nukes because without the extra megawatts, the future looks dark, literally.

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