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This article analyses the (non-)implementation of a campaign promise to shut down the Fessenheim nuclear power plant during President François Hollande’s term. This case study allows us to test the central hypothesis of this issue, namely that the fulfilment (or not) of an election pledge depends on both the capacity and incentives that political leaders have to honour their promises. Two main arguments are proposed. First, the nature of a promise and the circumstances under which it is made condition its fulfilment. Second, political actors can modulate their ability to keep promises. While, in this case, the executive branch was quickly faced with unanticipated sectoral constraints, it was able to exploit these constraints to reformulate and postpone an electoral promise that had been made reluctantly.