By Andreas Franke

December 17, 2018 - France's five coal-fired power plants remained offline Monday as workers protested against state plans to close them by 2022.

A strike at the 1.2 GW Cordemais plant in west France was extended to Wednesday morning, operator EDF said Monday in a note on its transparency website.

Both units at the plant had been offline since Tuesday, with the CGT union calling for a moratorium on closure plans while biomass conversion is assessed.

Last Thursday union representatives met with the energy ministry, with one local report suggesting the government wanted an update from EDF on conversion plans.

Unions would decide by Tuesday how to proceed with industrial action, according to a statement following the meeting.

EDF's third coal unit at Le Havre will remain unavailable until at least Friday due to an outage.

Uniper, which operates France's other two coal plants, has warned of a high strike risk at its Emile Huchet plant in the Lorraine region in Eastern France. Its Provence 5 coal unit is also currently offline amid the thread of strike action.

"We have yet to be presented with a binding legal framework [on the closure plan]," Uniper board member Eckhardt Ruemmler said November 29.

Numerous protests had affected coal-fired generation since the summer, Uniper said.

France's government wants to close the country's remaining coal plants before the next presidential elections in 2022.

Assessing future generation adequacy in November, grid operator RTE warned that full closure would only be possible after Q1 2021 under certain conditions.

The current spell of mild temperatures is putting little pressure on the French power system with gas-fired power plants helping to offset coal output at zero, RTE data for the past week show.