France was served up a big piece of humble pie this week as the country was forced to turn to Germany for a little extra power in the wake of a vicious cold snap running through Europe.

Last March, French officials were openly critical of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to shift the country’s power sources away from nuclear energy and rely completely on alternative sources of energy.

The Chancellor’s decision came after the nuclear disaster that rocked the Fukushima power plant in Japan.

The decision to shut down 17 reactors by 2022 was quickly denounced by French officials, stating that the move would result in greater dependence on fossil fuels, lead to increased carbon emissions and greater German dependence on imported atomic energy from France.

French industry Minister Eric Besson said, somewhat boastfully, that the German shift to alternative energy sources would cause German households to pay twice as much for power than homes in France, where nearly 80 percent of the country’s power is derived from nuclear power plants.

But oh how the tides have turned.

It seems that France’s dependence on nuclear energy is it’s greatest weakness in times of severely cold weather.

Because France is so reliant on nuclear power, it has an excessive number of electrical heating systems. And since the country has been lax in adding enough additional holding capacity over the past decade, nuclear plants are having trouble meeting the boost in demand caused by the current cold snap.

But Germany swooped in to save the day. In fact, German power exports to France reached 5 gigawats last Friday, an amount of energy equivalent to around four nuclear power plants.

According to German Journalist Bernward Janzing, the exports did not come at a time of low consumption. Germany was apparently consuming 70 gigawats of power at the time the energy was exported.

Janzing also reports that the exported power did not create a strain on Germany’s power grid. The 5 gigawats of power was not pulled from the country’s reserves, but was in fact was coming from power that was generated from photovoltaics, located in southern Germany.

Power prices in Germany remained stable after the move, a clear indication that Germany is not experiencing a power shortage from the move away from nuclear power, as many French officials predicted.

Oh and remember how French industry Minister Eric Besson predicted German households would pay two times the amount of those in France?

Well due to the country’s current energy woes prices have gone up 50 percent and the country has requested citizens to reduce their electricity consumption. Surley this will be a lesson in poetic justice Mr. Besson wont soon forget.