It might look like any other power struggle, but the battle to succeed Pierre Gadonneix at EDF is about much more than merely becoming chairman and chief executive of one of Europe’s biggest energy groups.

It has become a philosophical struggle, between free enterprise on the one hand and state control on the other, at the company that yesterday offered to pay £12.5 billion for British Energy.

The nomination of a political figure such as Gérard Longuet, a leading French senator, or Henri Guaino, an adviser to President Sarkozy, both of whom are canvassing for the post, would signal the State’s determination to keep control of the company, in which it has an 85 per cent stake.

A figure with corporate experience would indicate a willingness to press ahead with expansion abroad and productivity gains in France, maintaining the model adopted by Mr Gadonneix. Anne Lauvergeon, chief executive of Areva, the nuclear power station builder, is being touted by analysts as a potential candidate, but appears to have fallen out of favour with Mr Sarkozy this summer. Stéphane Richard, a senior Finance Ministry official and Mr Gadonneix’s choice for the job, was prevented from joining the group this summer. The Government was said to be indignant at Mr Gadonneix’s attempt to take the decision out of its hands. “The chairman of a public group does not choose his own successor, especially not at EDF,” L’Express, the news magazine, said.

The outrage highlighted sensitivity over an institution seen as a national champion and proof of the superiority of the Gallic public sector model over l’ultra liberalisme Anglo-Saxon.

With 58 reactors – the result of a government decision to embrace the nuclear option in the 1960s – EDF is the world’s biggest nuclear operator at a time when most other energy sources face cost or pollution hurdles. Per Lekander, a UBS analyst, said: “It has three times as many plants as anyone else. That gives it advantages of scale and knowledge.”

The challenge for the successor of Mr Gadonneix, who steps down next year, will be to maintain EDF’s performance as the French market is prised open to competition.

With France accounting for more than half of EDF’s sales, the company is banking on expansion elsewhere for continued growth – notably in the UK, China and the US, where it is involved in a bidding war with Warren Buffett for the Constellation Energy Group.Yesterday’s deal to aquire British Energy gives EDF direct control over British Energy’s eight nuclear and one coal-fired power stations.

EDF wants to build four European pressurised reactors (EPRs) at two sites owned by British Energy, starting with Hinkley Point, Somerset, and Sizewell, Suffolk.

To ease concerns about competition, EDF has also agreed to sell land around two nuclear sites – probably Wylfa, Anglesey, and Bradwell, in Essex – to a rival operator. EDF wants the first of its new UK plants to be operational by the end of 2017 – an ambitious timeframe.

Two such plants are under construction, in Finland and Normandy, but both have fallen behind schedule. The Finnish project is running £1 billion over budget.

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