Counterpoint: France is doing extremely well in Europe and is the only country that is doing well (I'm talking energy-wize). France is a nuclear energy country.

So yes, there is 1 pretty great solution to the energy problem and yes it has existed since the 50's..

France has the same energy price rises as the rest of Europe last year, since so many of their reactors weren't working. Most of them are also aging.

Their average prices are only a little below the EU average.

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

France is one of Europe's top energy exporters, despiting consuming a significant amount of energy itself. Domestic energy prices levelling with prices in neighboring countries, while energy exports rise, is what you'd expect with a country that has a relative abundance of energy along with free trade with neighboring countries.

Sure, when you convert energy you need to do maintenance and keep things up to date and if you don't do that bad things happen. That goes for all methods of energy conversion.

How does that have anything to do with the discussion about energy conversion types methods and their pros / cons?

I'd take your point if French were massively (like 90%) in favor of more nuclear, and saw it as their main energy source for the future centuries. That's definitely not the case [exit: a poll mandated from a nuclear power organisation puts it at 50% of people seeing nuclear plants as a positive asset for the country:

https://www.ouest-france.fr/environnement/nucleaire/sondage-... ]

You can then think what you want of the French people and why they could be dead wrong for not thinking like you, but it's another debate: they'll still want to get out of it if given the time/choice.