The government suffered a setback in its nuclear safety reform project on Wednesday March 15 in the Assembly. The deputies rejected the controversial text at first reading, some voices of the majority joining the left to oppose the “dismantling” of the Institute dedicated to security (IRSN), technical expert, which the executive wishes to merge within of the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), the power plant policeman.
But the deputies approved by a show of hands an amendment by Benjamin Saint-Huile, of the independent group Liot, to preserve a “dual organization” between the Institute and the Safety Authority, unraveling the whole of this sensitive article of the draft nuclear revival law. However, the subject is not closed. The government can still resort to a second deliberation.
And the debates on the rest of the bill were extended until Friday evening at the Palais Bourbon, before a solemn vote on Tuesday, March 21, decided in the evening the conference of presidents, which brings together the leaders of the political groups and the principal officials of the Assembly. The parliamentary shuttle will then continue. “We proposed to the Senate, given the importance of the subject, to have a second reading”, thus warned the Minister of Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
IRSN employees are cautious. “I’m very happy, but I’m wary of my joy because it’s not won yet. The government must hear this rejection, “said François Jeffroy, representative of the inter-union. Monday, during a third day of strike, hundreds of IRSN employees marched near the Assembly, with slogans like “IRSN dismantled, nuclear safety sold off”.
In the hemicycle, the left protested against the “rush” of a “hussar” reform, a “dangerous proposal” according to the ecologist and former minister Delphine Batho. It’s a “regular teardown.” We need this independence of research, within the IRSN, ”insisted the Insoumise Aurélie Trouvou.
A few majority voices, including former minister Barbara Pompili (Renaissance), also stepped up. “Without any impact study”, “it’s madness to throw it at us like that”, she launched. ” I am shocked “. Agnès Pannier-Runacher replied directly to her, using familiar terms: “You know perfectly well that this reform and this questioning were already under way a few months ago”. And “there is no change, at any time, to any line of our nuclear safety procedures,” she said.
Macronist rapporteur Maud Bregeon also pointed out that after the possible merger, “decision and expertise within ASN will continue to be separated exactly as they are today”.
The MoDem, divided on the subject, wanted to propose a compromise amendment with a parliamentary monitoring committee for the reform. The LRs, “a little surprised about the form”, rather look on the merger with a good eye, “guarantee of efficiency” to “streamline the procedures”, according to deputy Jérôme Nury. “The sky is not going to fall on nuclear safety,” he reassures. “Not opposed in principle”, the RN had mentioned an abstention by considering the subject “not successful”.
The disappearance of the IRSN was decided during a “nuclear policy council” around Emmanuel Macron on February 3. It was announced on February 8 and then introduced by a simple amendment adopted in committee at the Assembly. Objective: “Streamline ASN’s review and decision-making processes to respond to the growing volume of activities linked to the relaunch of the sector”, with the six new EPR reactors that the government wants to build by 2035 This merger did not appear in the text, during the broad adoption in the Senate of the nuclear stimulus bill at the end of January.
This dual ASN/IRSN system was created in the early 2000s. At IRSN and its 1,800 engineers, doctors, geologists, etc., expertise and research on safety. At ASN and its 500 agents, the decision, fed by the expertise of IRSN, for example when a defect is observed on a power plant or that a site must be authorized.
