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France is one of the countries that have made commendable progress towards accomplishing sustainable development goals but still struggles with combating environmental challenges. Decarbonizing the energy sector by deploying clean energy and reducing fossil fuels in the energy mix are essential steps. The study uses annual time series data from 1980 to 2021 and employs the ridge regression estimation technique to estimate a twice-differentiable transcendental production function, which approximates the second-order Taylor series to explore the potential for such decarbonization for France. The study finds that substitution possibilities exist between clean energy and fossil fuels, with substantial substitution possibilities coming from nuclear energy. Nuclear energy and renewables are found to be complements that can be deployed concurrently, but since nuclear energy already constitutes a significant proportion of clean energy for France, the study recommends increasing the proportion of renewable energy in the overall energy mix as the most plausible path to decarbonization. Other complementary sustainable energy policies are recommended in the body of the paper. • The substitution elasticities between clean energy and fossil fuels were estimated. • A second-order Taylor series trans-log production function was specified. • Substitutability is found between clean energy and fossil fuels. • Nuclear energy currently dominates France's clean energy mix. • Increasing renewables in the clean energy mix is recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]