France: 40g/kWh Germany 557g/kWh
If the goal is decarbonation, using wind+solar is alright (renewables are a bigger part of the mix in Germany) but burning gas and lignite when there's no sun or wind is not.
France switched to nuclear because at the time it didn't have any fossil fuel ( https://sites.google.com/view/electricitedefrance/messmer-pl... ), while Germany (especially the then-RDA part of it, Soviet-controlled) had huge reserves.
Phasing-out coal is therefore difficult for Germany, however it does so and the acceleration after Fukushima (2011) and during its nuclear phase-out is impressive: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-coal?ta...
France & Germany (beware: check the scales...): https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-generation-fr...
After Fukushima most German citizens didn't want nuclear reactors anymore: Which political parties switched most of the nuclear plants off since Fukushima? CDU/CSU: 14 FDP: 11 SPD: 9 Greens: 3 (source: https://x.com/HannoKlausmeier/status/1784158942823690561 )
The current carbon intensity per KWh in Germany is 526g, vs 50g for France.
The average yearly carbon intensity per KWh in Germany, is 354g.
So, either the rest 40% of domestically generated power are hyper-polluting, or the other statistics don't hold up.
Either way, with such a high carbon intensity, there is nothing to brag about.
And that's before entering the discussion about how the repercussions of the poor long-term German energy plan is currently killing their economy, and, indirectly, their social fabric.
> net power grid imports are less than 5% (17% imports vs. 12.5% exports in 24H1)
depending on when those happen. If they import French electricity whenever the wind is taking a break from blowing, that prevents craptons of pollution (including, but far from exclusively, CO2) from the massive German coal plant I live near to. If it's more random, say if it's just helping with some peaks when everyone's making bratwurst and coal currently doesn't cut it, then it's not reducing them from running
There are also times where we hear electricity prices are negative or near zero for a time, afaik usually caused by too much wind-based production. Exporting that may balance the thing out so that the net value is near zero
I'm sure it'll be some mix of those and other scenarios, but I'm not sure that looking at the net result says very much about whether nuclear electricity exports helped reduce emissions in surrounding countries like Germany. I'm more inclined to say the claim of the person you're responding to is likely correct (though I'd say "helpful to be" part of the mix, rather than "needs to be")