Gravelines: the Safety Expertise Department of ASNR’ damning opinion calls into question the EPR2

October 16, 2025, https://www.greenpeace.fr/espace-presse/gravelines-lavis-accablant-de-lasnr-remet-en-cause-les-epr2/

The Safety Expertise Department of ASNR, the nuclear safety and radiation protection authority, has just published a damning expert opinion on EDF’s project for the Gravelines power plant.

In addition to the already identified risks of submersion and flooding of the power plant, there is now the risk of soil settlement and liquefaction. The soil, which is designed to support the weight of the new EPR2 reactors, has “poor mechanical characteristics,” posing an unprecedented technical challenge regarding the robustness of the foundations over time and in the face of seismic hazards that could compromise nuclear safety.

“ This relentless opinion from the ASNR is further proof that the criteria for choosing sites for the construction of new EPR2 reactors are largely questionable. After underestimating the climate risks, EDF is underestimating the risk of building such a dangerous infrastructure on such unsuitable ground ,” emphasizes Pauline Boyer, nuclear campaigner for Greenpeace France. “This demonstrates once again the haste of EDF, which is rushing headlong into its plans to build new reactors in Gravelines. ”

A relentless opinion

In this opinion dated July 23, the ASNR severely rejects EDF’s copy of its first study of ground reinforcement on the Gravelines site, considering that the approach adopted by EDF is not sufficiently robust , ordering it to clarify the safety issues relating to ground reinforcement, to conduct new studies and to set up a monitoring system over time.

The opinion considers that the planned reinforcement of the ground at the Gravelines site constitutes “ a major technical challenge ” and that the system proposed by EDF is “of unprecedented scale, of great complexity and without representative feedback in France and internationally”.

A hard blow for EDF

The Gravelines nuclear power plant, built on a polder, is supposed to accommodate two new reactors (EPR2) as part of the nuclear recovery plan.

A year ago, Greenpeace published a report which, through mapping work projecting the rise in water levels in the Gravelines area until the end of the reactors’ lifespan, demonstrated that in 2100 and 2120, the entire Gravelines power plant site could be temporarily below sea level.

“The project to build new EPR2 reactors in Gravelines, EDF’s “seaside sandcastle,” is already sinking into quicksand. It’s time for EDF to make the most sensible decision: stop trying to build reactors at all costs, especially on such a vulnerable and unsuitable site, and invest this money in its renewable energy sector,” adds Pauline Boyer.

The difficulties and uncertainties of this nuclear construction project overlap, at the heart of an area accumulating risks (submersion, flooding, unsuitability of the soil, extreme climatic events, etc.). The 11-meter platform on which the EPR2 would be perched in an attempt to protect them from the risks of submersion and flooding (which Greenpeace always questions) makes the task even more difficult.

After the setbacks with the concrete intended for the construction of the future EPR2 in Penly, this is yet another example of EDF’s amateurism in wanting to build EPR2s in unsuitable areas without first carrying out a robust risk analysis.