“The acceleration” of nuclear “will not be at the expense of the security of our facilities,” assured the Minister of Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher, at the opening of the debates on the bill dedicated to nuclear this Monday at the ‘Assembly.
“This bill does not affect a single comma of our nuclear safety procedures,” the minister insisted before the deputies, while employees of the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) demonstrated near the Palais Bourbon against the controversial reorganization of safety.
The Government added the nuclear safety reform through a simple amendment, approved by the deputies in committee. He wants to integrate the IRSN, a technical expert, into the Nuclear Security Authority (ASN), the power plant police.
“At a time when the workload will increase, it is proposed to expand the ASN’s missions. Who can be against it? And unite, in the manner of Canada or the United States, the skills of IRSN to those of ASN under the protective status of independent administrative authority”, justified Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
“The guiding thread of the greatest French industrial adventure”
“ASN would thus be the second largest security authority in the world in terms of human and financial resources with a scientific credibility that I want to be total,” he said.
“It is neither more nor less the common thread of the greatest French industrial adventure since the 70s that we are renewing,” he argued.
More generally, the Minister praised this simplification text that accompanies Emmanuel Macron’s promise to build six new EPR reactors by 2035.
Faced with fossil fuels, “accelerating renewable energy means being green. Reviving our nuclear industry means being green,” he said.
The security reform aroused the anger of both the IRSN unions and the ASN, on the left, and protests even in the majority.
In a press conference organized just before the session, environmentalists and LFI, hostile to nuclear power, denounced a “totally irresponsible decommissioning”, an “aberration”.
In more general terms, the LFI Aurélie Trouvé criticized an “precipitous atomic fever”, “extremely dangerous” with this bill.
“The moment is serious”, “our plants age badly”, abounded the environmentalist Julie Laernoes, surrounded by activists from Greenpeace and the Red Sortir du Nuclear.
Source: BFM TV
