Nuclear safety: the Elysée relaunches the disputed merger of the two control bodies

The Elysee Palace relaunched, on Wednesday July 19, the contested process of merging the two institutions responsible for nuclear safety in France, instructing the government to prepare a bill to this effect “by the fall”.

This operation, announced by the Presidency of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, three months after a rejection by Parliament of a first merger project, would bring together in a new “great independent authority” the Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), safety expert, and the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), responsible for decisions concerning power plants, according to a press release.

The authority, “whose financial and human resources would be reinforced (…) will make it possible to adapt nuclear safety in the face of the three challenges of the revival” of civilian nuclear power desired by the Head of State, added the Elysée.

These “challenges” are “the extension of the existing fleet”, the “construction of new EPRs”, new generation reactors, and “the development of innovative small modular reactors”, listed the executive.

Consultations

The Nuclear Policy Council (CPN), meeting Wednesday at the Elysée Palace, “confirmed the government’s desire to move forward in this direction by ensuring that all of the missions of ASN and IRSN are preserved”, according to the same source.

The CPN has therefore “assigned the Minister of Energy Transition [Agnès Pannier-Runacher] to initiate consultations with stakeholders and parliamentarians with a view to preparing a bill”, added the presidency.

This announcement came a week after the authors of a parliamentary report had recommended the merger of the two institutions, in the face of the expected increase in the workload in monitoring the power plants, present and future.

The reform, which came from the Elysee, was rejected in April by Parliament, against a backdrop of criticism of the method and concerns for transparency and the quality of the expertise. Since the announcement of the presidential intentions, IRSN employees, but also nuclear experts and parliamentarians, have been standing up against this merger project: they see it as a loss of independence, competence and ability to express the experts.

Last week, the IRSN inter-union described the parliamentary report as “partial and biased”.

EPR2s at Bugey

After many back and forths, Parliament adopted the nuclear stimulus bill in May. But despite the will of the government, a section providing for a reform of nuclear safety had been rejected the previous month. At the time, the Ministry of Energy Transition judged that it was “too early” to decide on the continuation of this reform, without therefore burying it definitively.

At the end of the CPN on Wednesday, the presidency also revealed that it had chosen the Bugey nuclear site (Ain) to host the third pair of future new generation EPR2 reactors. The Penly (Seine-Maritime) and Gravelines (Nord) sites had already been designated for the construction of two EPR2s each.

Emmanuel Macron had announced, in February 2022, two months before being re-elected, a vast recovery plan for civil nuclear power, with the construction of six to fourteen new generation reactors by 2050. “The location of the first phase of the EPR2 construction program has now been stopped”, noted the Elysée. EDF had mentioned either Bugey or Tricastin (Drôme) for this third installation. “Technical studies and analyzes will continue at the Tricastin site with a view to hosting future nuclear reactors,” the statement said.

The president of the departmental council of Drôme, Marie-Pierre Mouton, expressed in a press release her “very great disappointment”, on behalf of Tricastin and “of an entire living area extended to four departments and three regions”, acknowledging that the technical file of Bugey “had a small head start”. “We are ready to welcome the next EPRs which will necessarily be scheduled very quickly,” she said.

Earlier, on Wednesday, the CEO of EDF, Luc Rémont, told deputies that his recently renationalized company would have to boost its investments to 25 billion euros per year (compared to 16.39 billion in 2022). This is the level of investment required, according to Mr. Rémont, to meet the group’s many industrial challenges, starting with the construction of the new EPR2s.