France’s Flamanville new generation nuclear reactor “is a mess” – Energy Minister Barbara Pompili
Montel News 23rd July 2020, The new generation EPR reactor EDF is building at Flamanville in France
“is a mess,” France’s new energy minister Barbara Pompili said on Thursday. “I think it’s clear. The Flamanville EPR is a mess. This has been said in a number of reports which cannot be suspected of being anti-nuclear, notably the Court of Auditors report,” she told France Inter radio. “The initial costs (of the EPR) have multiplied by four,” she said, pointing to “problems of competence” that “had to be resolved.”
https://www.montelnews.com/en/story/french-epr-is-a-mess–energy-minister/1133707?s=09
Electricite de France (EDF) ‘s new nuclear reactors not financially viable
French auditor calls for financing guarantee for future EPR projects, WNN, 15 July 2020, EDF must ensure the financing and profitability of its proposed EPR2 reactor before starting construction of any plants based on the design in France, the country’s state audit office has said. The EPR2 is a simplified version of the EPR design, construction of which has been hit by delays and cost increases in France and Finland……..
Construction of the Olkiluoto 3 EPR began in 2005, with completion of the reactor originally scheduled for 2009. However, with various delays and setbacks, fuel loading is now planned for later this year. The loading of fuel into the Flamanville EPR in France, construction of which began in December 2007, is now scheduled for the end of 2022. Two EPR units are also under construction at the Hinkley Point C project in Somerset, UK.launch of the construction sites of the first two EPRs, in Finland and in Flamanville. This insufficient preparation led to underestimating the difficulties and the construction costs, and to overestimating the capacity of the French nuclear sector to face it, at the cost of financial risks for the companies of the sector.”The audit office added, “The construction of new EPRs in France cannot in any event be envisaged without clear prior answers on the methods of financing and the role of nuclear power production in the electricity mix of tomorrow.”
The report says EDF is no longer in a position to finance the construction of new reactors on its own. The utility, it says, is studying means of financing that either makes the consumer – as in the case of the UK’s contract-for-difference for construction of Hinkley Point C – or the taxpayer bear the costs of construction.
“The financial challenges are major, with the cost of construction of three pairs of EPR2 reactors being estimated at EUR46 billion (2018 value),” the Cour des Comptes notes. “Taking into account their duration of construction, production and dismantling, the decision to build or not to build future EPRs will have consequences until the 22nd Century. …. https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/French-auditor-calls-for-financing-guarantee-for-f
France’s state auditor questions the wisdom of EDF’s Hinkley Point nuclear project in UK
Telegraph 11th July 2020, Doubts cast on EDF’s ability to build power stations on time and budget.
French auditor questions wisdom of state-owned utility’s involvement in building the new Hinkley Point C power station in Somerset.
France’s state auditor has questioned the ability of the company building Britain’s next nuclear power plant to construct new reactors within “acceptable” costs and timeframes. State-owned EDF has already said that its Flamanville nuclear plant in Normandy will now cost €12.4bn due to the expense of fixing 66 faulty welds. On top of that, the project will cost another €6.7bn, according to France’s Court of Accounts in a new report.
EDF has also said the plant’s start date will be delayed until the end of 2022. Flamanville was originally due to cost €3.3bn and start operations in 2012.
Presenting the damning 148-page report this week, Court of Accounts chief Pierre Moscovici said: “There is still uncertainty on the ability of the French nuclear industry, despite its current strong efforts, to build new nuclear reactors within a time frame and costs that remain acceptable.”
The criticism follows a £3bn surge in costs at the Hinkley Point C reactor EDF is building in Somerset. The bill for the project will now be £22.5bn – £2.9bn more than previously forecast – with overruns paid for by EDF. The energy giant has faced lags at its other projects, including Finland’s Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor, which is running more than
a decade behind schedule.
In its report, the state auditor questioned the wisdom of involvement in Hinkley Point C, saying its construction was
“weighing heavily” on the financial situation of EDF, whose net debt hit €41bn at the end of last year.
Court reveals that EDF deceived UK about the true financial risks of Hinkley Point nuclear project
EDF boss suppressed report calling Hinkley Point ‘risky’Adam Sage, The Times, 10 July 20, thetimes.co.uk/article/edf-boss-suppressed-report-calling-hinkley-point-risky-gd5vcdhrx
The Times reports that the chief executive of the French company building the UK’s new nuclear reactors won boardroom approval for the project after suppressing an internal review labelling it as risk-laden. In a “highly critical report on the European Pressurised Reactors”, France’s Court of Audit said that the Hinkley Point project in Somerset, led by EDF, represented a “high financial risk” for the French state electricity group, the Times adds.
The court uncovered that the risks had been pointed out in a 2015 review that warned there “were not efficient enough to guarantee that risks would be controlled”. The Times continues: “The court said that Jean-Bernard Lévy, EDF’s executive chairman, had ‘refused to transmit the full report’ to directors or the government, even though the state has an 83.7% stake. They received only a synopsis.” The project received approval from the EDF board in 2016. The court also said that EDF must establish the financing and profitability of nuclear reactors before launching projects, reports Reuters, “dealing a blow to the state-owned utility’s ambitions to build new units”. And Reuters also reports that nuclear power generation at its reactors in France plunged 25.1% in June (compared to 2019) due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
Meanwhile, writing in the Daily Telegraph, Sir Iain Duncan-Smith – MP and former leader of the Conservative Party – argues that the UK should “unwind its dependence on China” for “cheap goods and nuclear power”. He says: “The UK has enormous home grown tidal power potential, yet both tidal and hydrogen seem to have been brushed aside in favour of our growing dependence on large Chinese-run nuclear projects.” He concludes: “From Huawei to hydrogen and Hong Kong, we need to recognise the strategic threat China poses and, together with our allies, decide what we will do to reduce it, otherwise we risk repeating the failed lessons of the past.” And also in the Daily Telegraph, chief city commentator Ben Marlow says that the government should be stimulating manufacturing demand to contain the damage caused by Covid-19 to Rolls Royce – “Britain’s most illustrious engineering company”. He says: “It should start with nuclear where enlisting the expertise of Rolls-Royce in building so-called mini-nukes would help to solve its current geo-political nightmare with China. It would make it easier to ditch China General Nuclear Power Group from the plans to build giant new plants at Sizewell on the Suffolk coast and Bradwell in Essex, or scrap the proposals altogether.” These decisions would “also offer a greener and cheaper alternative to a technology that looks decidedly out of date already, and it would create jobs at a company in desperate need of a leg up – three birds with one stone”.
France’s oldest nuclear power plant at Fessenheim finally shut down
The two reactors at Fessenheim began operation in 1977 and 1978 and were already three years beyond their projected 40-year life span.
Although there is no legal limit on the operating life of French nuclear power plants, EDF had envisaged a 40-year lifetime for all second-generation PWRs.
Fessenheim had become a focus for anti-nuclear campaigners after the 2011 Fukushima accident in Japan, prompting then President Francois Hollande to promise its closure. However, it was not until 2018 that his successor Emmanuel Macron finalised the decision.,,,….. https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsfessenheim-closes-down-8004216
France’s EDF in a financial pickle over huge costs of UK’s Hinkley C nuclear project
Dave Toke’s Blog 27th June 2020, The chickens are coming home to roost for EDF for their 
questionable decision to go ahead with building Hinkley C -a decision they took despite the lack of certainty over whether they would get enough backing from the British Government.
Originally EDF was publicised as being offered UK Treasury loan guarantees that had been widely touted as a vital basis for building Hinkley C. But now the French Financial Markets Regulator has
sanctioned EDF for not flagging up how conditional such loan guarantees were. These loan guarantees have never materialised.
Essentially, EDF is now continuing to build Hinkley C using money borrowed on its own balance
sheets – borrowings which are much more costly than UK Government backed guarantees and which reduce its own (EDF) profitability.
The Finance Officer of EDF actually resigned at the time EDF decided to go ahead with building Hinkley C. Of course all this is happening at the same time when we are being asked to believe that the next EPR (at Sizewell C) is going to be delivered at low cost to the consumer if the risk of building the plant is transferred from EDF to the British taxpayer and consumer!
This is the so-called RAB mechanism, something that could well just turn out to be an
almost unlimited cash facility for EDF to park their financial black hole in the centre of British finances (as well as those of the French).
https://realfeed-intariffs.blogspot.com/2020/06/edf-sanctioned-by-french-regulators-for.html
France’s old Fessenheim nuclear reactor to finally shut down- the first of many
France’s oldest nuclear reactor to finally shut down,Guardian,
Environmentalists have welcomed news that the 43-year-old Fessenheim reactor will close, nine years after it was first planned, Agence France-Presse, 28 June 20,
France’s oldest nuclear power plant will shut down on Tuesday after four decades in operation, to the delight of environmental activists who have long warned of contamination risks, but stoking worry for the local economy.
The Fessenheim plant, opened in 1977 and already three years over its projected 40-year life span, became a target for anti-nuclear campaigners after the catastrophic meltdown at Fukushima in Japan in 2011.
Despite a pledge by then-president Francois Hollande just months after the Fukushima disaster to close Fessenheim – on the Rhine river near France’s eastern border with Germany and Switzerland – it was not until 2018 that his successor Emmanuel Macron gave the final green light.
Run by state-owned energy company EDF, one of Fessenheim’s two reactors was disconnected in February.
The second is to be taken off line early on Tuesday, but it will be several months before the reactors have cooled enough for the used fuel to be removed.
That process should be completed by 2023, and the plant is not expected to be fully dismantled before 2040 at the earliest. …..
More will follow, with only 294 people needed on site for the fuel removal process until 2023, and about 60 after that for the final disassembly. ……
There is no legal limit on the life span of French nuclear power stations, but the EDF had envisaged a 40-year ceiling for all second-generation reactors, which use pressurised water technology.
France’s ASN nuclear safety authority has said reactors can be operated beyond 40 years only if ambitious safety improvements are undertaken.
In the 1990s and 2000s, several safety failures were reported at Fessenheim, including an electrical fault, cracks in a reactor cover, a chemistry error, water pollution, a fuel leak, and non-lethal radioactive contamination of workers.
In 2007, the same year a Swiss study found that seismic risks in the Alsace region had been underestimated during construction, the ASN denounced a “lack of rigour” in EDF’s operation of the plant.
Without Fessenheim, France will still have 56 pressurised water reactors at 18 nuclear plants generating some 70% of its electricity. Only the US, with 98, has more reactors, but France is by far the world’s biggest consumer of nuclear energy.
In January, the French government said it would shut 12 more reactors nearing or exceeding the 40-year limit by 2035, when nuclear power should represent just 50% of the country’s energy mix in favour of renewable sources.
At the same time, the EDF is racing to get its first next-generation reactor running by 2022 – 10 years behind schedule – and more may be in the pipeline…….https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/28/frances-oldest-nuclear-reactor-to-finally-shut-down
Nuclear power sales heavily affected byCOVID-19 in France: legal battles to follow
  The Impact of COVID-19 on Nuclear Electricity Sales Contracts in France, JDSUPRA,
Nora Djeraba, Ruxandra Lazar, King & Spalding 19 June 20, The electricity sector, like numerous others in France, has been heavily affected by the economic shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The first two weeks of confinement led to a reduction in electricity consumption in France of around 15 to 20% compared to the consumption usually observed at the same year period under equivalent weather conditions[1]. Such a variation in electricity consumption over such a short period of time is unprecedented, the most recent significant drop in demand having been observed during the economic crisis of 2008-2009, when, in contrast, the contraction in demand spread over the long term, reaching a maximum of -5% from one year to the next. Concomitantly, electricity prices on the wholesale markets dropped from EUR50-55/Mwh at the beginning of 2020 to around EUR20/Mwh at the end of March. This distressed economic situation highly impacted the so-called “alternative” electricity suppliers in France, i.e., suppliers other than the incumbent operator, EDF, which entered the retail electricity market in France as a result of its opening up to competition. Several of these suppliers declared force majeure under the contracts entered into with EDF for buying nuclear electricity at a price which became too high compared to the wholesale market price. Several decisions have already been rendered on this issue by the French energy market regulator – Commission de regulation de l’énergie or “CRE”, the Conseil d’Etat (the highest administrative court on administrative matters) and the Commercial Court of Paris, but the legal battle is only just beginning and, given the amounts at stake, we can expect it will be long and bitter……… https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/the-impact-of-covid-19-on-nuclear-52378/ |
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Risk of fire on a nuclear submarine. France’s lucky escape, due to reactor being removed for overhaul
Why The Catastrophic Fire On A Nuclear Submarine Is Nothing To Gloat About https://www.forbes.com/sites/hisutton/2020/06/14/why-the-catastrophic-fire-on-a-nuclear-submarine-is-nothing-to-gloat-about/#ef9667d2ffd0
As details emerge of the fire aboard the French submarine Perle on Friday, it seems unlikely to me that the boat will be returned to service. Whichever way you look at it, the fire is a terrible blow for the French Navy (Marine Nationale). Their submarine fleet is already stretched. But France’s misfortune brings home a basic reality that it could happen to any navy.
The cause of the fire, which took most of Friday to extinguish, has yet to be determined. Florence Parly, Minister of the Armed Forces, was reported by Naval News as saying on June 13 that the “cause for such a strong (and rapid) fire is still unknown.” She also said that if the boat turns out to be fixable, everything will be done to repair it. Any hint of optimism in this statement may point to the terrible predicament that it will leave the French Navy in if it cannot be repaired.
No Reason To Gloat
You will not find many in the defense community laughing at France’s expense. When a Russian or Chinese warship suffers a similar accident, many casual observers are quick to make jokes. Less so the defense community.
For example on April 13 a Chinese Type-075 assault carrier caught fire in Shanghai. That ship, the first of its type, was being fitted out before delivery. The types of work done during refit are similar to the deep overhaul that Perle was being subject to. Or in December last year a Russian aircraft carrier caught fire.
But the Western defense community is very aware that these accidents could equally apply to their home navies. Overhauling ships and submarines is ‘hot work’ and fires can easily occur.
The fire took 14 hours to put out, from 10.35am until 00.50 am the next morning. This may sound like a long time, but the U.S. Navy had a similar experience dealing with a fire aboard the Los Angeles class submarine USS Miami in 2012. That fire, which was also during an overhaul, lasted 12 hours and caused so much damage that the boat had to be written off. In the American case it turned out that the fire had been started deliberately by a dockyard worker hoping that the alarm would get him off work early.
In general, fires aboard submarines can be harder to put out. This is because of the cramped spaces aboard, and also because there are very few openings into the submarine. And they can be more devastating than a similar fire aboard a surface vessel because the heat can deform the steel hull. On a surface vessel this can be repaired more easily, but with a submarine it can make the hull weaker so that it is no longer safe to dive. This is why I am not optimistic that she will be repairable.
The fire was not as bad as it could have been. Fortunately the nuclear reactor had apparently already been removed. So the fire has not been categorized as a nuclear accident. And the torpedoes and missiles had also been unloaded so there was no risk of them exploding.
Many core systems, such as the combat system and sonar, had also been removed. So if the hull can be saved, then returning her to service is at least feasible. But everything seems to depend on whether the hull itself has been weakened.
Why doesn’t debt-ridden EDF cut its losses and close its uneconomic UK nuclear reactors
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Unanswered questions dog UK’s new nuclear plans Climate News Network June 11th, 2020, by Paul Brown A French company has designs on the United Kingdom: new nuclear plans for more reactors, with British consumers footing the bill.
– The French company EDF, a company in a hurry, wants permission to start building two more reactors in the United Kingdom, and it hopes to save money – by arranging for British taxpayers to pay the capital costs of its new nuclear plans. EDF is already building two reactors at Hinkley Point in the West of England, and it is hoping to transfer workers from that site to Suffolk, on the east coast, believing that will help it to save up to 20% of the construction cost of the two planned reactors, because everyone employed there will know already what to do. The catch is that EDF has no money itself to finance the construction and wants the UK government to impose a new tax on British electricity consumers so that they will pay the cost through their electricity bills. The UK has yet to decide whether to go ahead with this tax, euphemistically called a Regulated Asset Base. If adopted, what the scheme means is that the UK consumer will pay EDF’s bills rather than the company having to borrow the money from banks, which are increasingly unlikely to lend money to such expensive schemes because they take so long to build and promise little return. Anxieties abound Meanwhile EDF, which has a Chinese nuclear company as its junior partner, promises to create 25,000 jobs, including 1,000 apprenticeships during construction, and says 900 full-time jobs will be available when Sizewell C, as the station will be called, is complete. If all goes to plan the company hopes to start work in 18 months and says the two reactors will take 10 years to build. It expects them to provide 7% of the UK’s electricity, enough for six million homes. There are many objectors. Some say much of the coastline will be badly affected, including internationally important nature reserves. Others fear the site is highly vulnerable to sea level rise and therefore a danger to the public. Local people also fear that the construction site, with its attendant lorry and commuter traffic, will disrupt their lives for a decade, destroying the important tourist trade. Cheaper options Other more strategic objections, which might weigh heavier with the government, are that nuclear power is very expensive and much cheaper and less controversial alternatives exist, particularly on-shore and off-shore wind and solar power, and biogas. More importantly, a drive for energy efficiency, badly neglected in the UK at present, would render the whole project unnecessary. The problem EDF has is its track record on construction and repairs. The type of reactor it plans to build, the European Pressurised Water Reactor, said by the company to be the most powerful in the world, is proving extremely difficult to build, and till now none has yet been completed outside China. Construction is running more than 10 years late in both Finland and France, and costs continue to escalate.
EDF’s debts are now huge, so big that the French state is working out how to restructure the company by splitting it into a renewables arm (which is profitable) and a nuclear branch. There are serious doubts about the reliability of EDF’s claims and timetables for fixing existing power stations and opening new ones. The company currently owns all of the UK’s operating nuclear reactors, most of which are near the end of their lives, and there are serious doubts about whether they are economic and in some cases even safe. Two reactors at Hunterston in Scotland have serious cracking in the graphite blocks that are part of the control mechanism. The company has spent two years trying to justify continuing to operate the reactors to the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR). Similarly, at the other end of the UK, at Dungeness in south-east England, the station is also closed for extensive repairs, an outage that was going to take weeks has now stretched to two years – and the start-up date has just been put back again. Looking on the bright side One of the features of all of EDF’s activities is the extraordinary optimism the company seems to have, particularly about when reactors will be finished or ready to restart after repairs. With the Hunterston reactors restart dates have been announced nine times, only to be postponed each time. This track record led the Climate News Network to ask EDF some searching questions, including why they continued to offer optimistic start-up dates that were repeatedly postponed. We also asked why the company kept the Hunterston and Dungeness stations open at all, since repairing them was costly and they were already near the end of their operating lives. We asked EDF: “At what point do you cut your losses and close the stations permanently?” After five days of pleading for more time to answer, it sent us already published press releases extolling the virtues of the plan to build Sizewell, and several comments. …….HTTPS://CLIMATENEWSNETWORK.NET/UNANSWERED-QUESTIONS-DOG-UKS-NEW-NUCLEAR-PLAN/, l |
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Fire on French submarine – luckily its nuclear reactor, nuclear fuel, had been removed for overhaul
 A French Submarine Caught Fire In Drydock. It Could Lead Paris To Rethink Its Nuclear Deterrence Strategy. Forbes, Sebastien Roblin 11 June 20 A fire broke out in the rear section of the French nuclear-powered attack submarine Perle on Friday morning as she lay in drydock in the port of Toulon. White clouds of smoke poured into the sky as firefighters from Toulon and Marseilles rushed to the scene.
Finally at 9:36 p.m local time the Mediterranean Maritime Prefecture reported that the fire had been brought under control by completely flooding the rear compartments of the boat with foam, further noting that the “reactor rooms remains untouched.”…….. Just as importantly, the ship’s 48 megawatt pressurized water nuclear reactor, nuclear fuel, and (conventional-only) weapons had been removed when the submarine entered the drydock in January 2020 for an overhaul by Naval Group due for completion by February 2021. For that reason, the local maritime prefecture claims there is no possibility of radioactive contamination from the incident.
The firefighting effort reportedly involved 30 specialist naval firefighters with support from a firefighting boat, as well as additional specialists scrambled from Marseilles, 11 specialized ground-based firefighting vehicles, and at least 10 ESNA submariners to advise the firefighters. However, there are growing fear that the Perle may have sustained too much damage to be saved. A veteran submariner told the local paper Var Matin “If the thick hull [made of 80HY high-tensile steel]…is deformed, the boat is screwed.” The cause of the blaze is speculated to possibly be faulty welding or a high-pressure cutting gone awry. France’s Nuclear Submarine Force French periodical LeMonde warned that should the Perle suffer “irremediable damage,” there was the possibility “the entire organization of French nuclear deterrence may have to be rethought. And the Navy may have to give up on certain strategic missions.” The Perle does not actually carry any nuclear weapons. However, one of the primary roles of French attack submarines is protecting the four larger Triomphant-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) from hostile submarines. Indeed, the SSBN Le Téméraire conducted a test launch of an unarmed M51 nuclear ballistic missile just the day prior. France perceives these submarines as performing a vital role in strategic nuclear deterrence, or “dissuasion” as it’s called in France………. Establishing the cause of the accident that may put out of action a valuable strategic asset will also be a priority for Defense Minister Florence Parley, particularly given how much more serious the incident might have been had weapons, the reactor and/or additional personnel had been onboard. For now the citizens of Toulon can only be thankful that loss of life was averted and that there is no apparent risk of contamination. The French Navy will have to take stock of the damage, adjust its plans for its SSN fleet accordingly—and consider how it can minimize the odds of another such accident occurring. https://www.forbes.com/sites/sebastienroblin/2020/06/12/a-french-submarine-caught-fire-in-drydock-it-could-lead-paris-to-rethink-its-nuclear-deterrence-strategy/#4addae213d05 |
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French nuclear watchdog demands EDF fix faults at 5 reactors
French nuclear watchdog demands EDF fix faults at 5 reactors, Montel News, MURIEL BOSELLI, Paris 10 June 20, France’s nuclear safety authority has served EDF with a formal notice to repair deviations and reinforce five reactors at its 5.4 GW Gravelines nuclear power plant by the end of October – work that would not require shutdowns.
The notice concerned deviations in five out of the plant’s six reactors. Operator EDF had already made changes to equipment around reactor 5, ASN said on Wednesday. https://www.montelnews.com/en/story/french-nuclear-watchdog-demands-edf-fix-faults-at-5-reactors/1121918
Huge police squadron paid by nuclear industry to monitor residents of Bure
the tens of millions of euros per year disbursed by Andra to pay for the presence of the gendarme squadron represents a significant sum. In 2018, the agency’s net profit amounted to only 11.5 million euros,
Cigeo related expenses are directly funded by the three major nuclear players: EDF and Orano, two private companies, and CEA, a public research establishment. In 2018, they poured 212 million euros into the landfill project.
Large Man Looking At Co-Worker With A Magnifying Glass — Image by © Images.com/Corbis
In Bure, the nuclear waste agency pays the police, À Bure, l’agence des déchets nucléaires se paie des gendarmes, Reporterre, 5 juin 2020 / Marie Barbier (Reporterre) et Jade Lindgaard According to information obtained by Mediapart and Reporterre, an agreement was signed in 2018 between the national gendarmerie and Andra, the agency responsible for the burial of nuclear waste, in this village of the Meuse. Since then, the agency has paid tens of millions of euros to monitor residents through gendarmes. This partnership poses ethical and legal problems.
Around Bure, in the Meuse, where the most dangerous nuclear waste from French power plants must be buried in a gigantic mine 500 meters underground, the villages are only inhabited by a handful of people. And yet, 75 gendarmes patrol there 24 hours a day. For almost a year and a half, according to information collected by Mediapart and Reporterre, these soldiers are paid by Andra, the National Agency for Radioactive Waste Management, which has set up a laboratory at the future landfill.
In October 2018, an agreement was signed between Andra and the General Directorate of the National Gendarmerie (DGGN) “in order to guarantee the safety of personnel and facilities in the long term” the agency confirmed to us, in response to our questions. According to figures given by the agency itself, “ten million euros” are spent each year by Andra, a public industrial and commercial establishment (EPIC), to pay the soldiers engaged and cover related costs, including catering. To date, therefore, at least twenty million euros have been spent – or are in the process of being spent – in this context
The mobile gendarmes are hosted directly on Andra’s site, in a block built for this purpose. They sleep there, store their equipment and their vehicles and take their recovery days there before leaving to patrol. These soldiers, often very young, stay there for three to six weeks before leaving on another assignment. They are immediately replaced by new arrivals. The DGGN refused to communicate the exact content to us The government decision to assign a squadron of mobile gendarmes to this territory dates from the summer of 2017. In June, Le Bindeuil, a hotel-restaurant known to accommodate Andra staff and gendarmes, suffered damage during the anti-nuclear days. And in August, a demonstration ended in confrontations with the police. These facts are today the subject of judicial information, in which ten people are under investigation, and which gives rise to massive and particularly intrusive surveillance, as we detailed in our four-part investigation……..
Is it legal to pay a squadron of gendarmes to protect themselves?….
Long dormant, this system was revived by a decree, signed by Alain Juppé in 1997…..
….. In 2009, an agreement was signed with EDF for the protection of nuclear power plants. “At the national level, the overall workforce is around a thousand gendarmes,” confirms EDF, who specifies that “this specialized platoon is financed by EDF” but that the latter “does not communicate on the cost of this protection” .
This is to prevent a new Zad, like that of Notre-Dame-des-Landes, from forming But Andra’s laboratory cannot, unlike nuclear power plants, be considered a sensitive site. No radioactive waste is present there. Cigeo’s excavation work.
So what is the purpose of the gendarmerie platoon paid by Andra at the Bure site? According to many residents that we were able to contact, these gendarmes are mainly assigned to the surveillance of the territory and its inhabitants. For the police, it is a question of preventing the militants evicted from Lejuc wood – a communal forest once occupied by opponents of Cigeo – from returning. And to prevent a new Zad from forming, he example of Notre-Dame-des-Landes, in Loire-Atlantique
According to residents interviewed for this article, the patrol vehicles are reformed vehicles, old Range Rovers, or newer models from Kangoo and Transit. A villager saw them move at night with torches bearing the acronym of Andra. What exactly are their prerogatives? The Directorate General of the National Gendarmerie refused to answer our questions.
“Permanent and repeated identity checks infringe on individual freedoms” and can “only lead to incidents”.
Me Matteo Bonaglia, one of the lawyers indicted in the framework of the criminal investigation for association of criminals, says he is “surprised by such means allocated to Andra. This explains, however, the over-militarization that we observe in this territory where the fight against the project to bury nuclear waste is playing out, Andra being able to allocate the assistance of the police force in a proportion three times greater than everywhere elsewhere.
It is already difficult to oppose the Cigeo project and assert its anti-nuclear opinions. Here, the multiplication of controls and the over-representation of gendarmes constitutes a de facto obstacle to freedom of opinion and the free expression of ideas. It also explains the large number of trials that have taken place in recent years for offenses such as contempt and rebellion, not everyone is so willing to be subject to constant scrutiny. ”
This agreement with the gendarmerie is all the more problematic since Andra appears several times in the file currently being examined after the start of the fire at the Hôtel-restaurant du Bindeuil, in which ten anti-nuclear activists are put under review and to which Mediapart and Reporterre had access.
The agency did not bring a civil action, but complained three times. Thus, on February 17, 2017, its director, David Mazoyer, filed a complaint “on behalf of Andra” after “degradations” committed on the site of the eco-library, belonging to the agency. “During the night of February 16 to 17, 2017,” explains the director of gendarmes in Ligny-en-Barrois the opponents damaged, bent or tore down the fence around the site, mainly on the west facade and on a line of about 150 meters. These degradations were the subject of an additional indictment and joined the long list of crimes covered in this sprawling instruction.
A few months later, on June 21, 2017, the day of the fire at the Le Bindeuil hotel and restaurant, David Mazoyer filed a second complaint: “Other members of their movement attacked the code on the pedestrian portal giving access to the Ecothèque site. This device is damaged and out of use. I am filing a complaint on behalf of Andra for the destruction of this device. ”
Finally, on April 24, 2018, it was the head of Andra’s risk protection and prevention service who complained about receiving documents after discovering photos belonging to the Ecoteca during a search.
According to our information, the platoon of gendarmes paid by Andra is not assigned to the “Bure cell”, a cell of gendarmes with their own badge in charge of the current investigation. But what about a complainant who pays gendarmes to go and monitor the people against whom he has complained? By order of the prefecture, Andra gendarmes can also in theory be assigned to the maintenance of order at demonstrations or at the courthouse. The mix of genres would then be total: a complainant who pays the police in a demonstration against him or worse, during trials of opponents of his project …
In addition to this potential conflict of interest, the apparently legal agreement between Andra and the national gendarmerie raises legal questions. In 2018, a circular from the Minister of the Interior Gérard Colomb paved the way for a much wider billing than what had been initially planned. “The circular no longer takes the precaution of limiting it to” organizers of sporting, recreational or cultural events for profit “. We can invoice everyone, regardless of the object and the lucrative purpose or not, “said Mickaël Lavaine.
In 2018, the publication of his article in the review of legal current events in administrative law gave rise to an action brought by the Collectif des Festivals before the Council of State, the organizers denouncing the considerable sums of security which they owed. ” discharge to the State.
This mixture of genres questions the impartiality of police work
In this legal debate, the two paragraphs of article L211-11 of the code of internal security, organized by the Columbus circular, are opposed. The first specifies that these conventions concern only “organizers of sporting, recreational or cultural events for profit”, the second target much more broadly all “natural or legal persons”. “The Council of State will have to rule on this debate: is paragraph 2 linked to paragraph 1? If he decides in this sense, which I defend, that means that Andra cannot be invoiced, nor of the associations which organize the potato festival. This would return to the spirit of the text of the Tour de France, “said Mickaël Lavaine. The Council of State is expected to decide by summer.
For the researcher, this legal debate poses a much broader question: “The internal security code specifies that the police or gendarmerie forces may be charged for law enforcement services which cannot be attached to the normal obligations incumbent on the public authorities’. But what is the obligation normal state? This notion is vague enough to be able to put what you want into it. If we push the logic of the Columbus circular to its end, there is nothing to prohibit charging the organizer of an FO demonstration or the CGT for the police devices of a demonstration. However, the Declaration of Human Rights provides that the public force must be financed by taxes. ”
For Alexandre Faro, lawyer for one of the activist witnesses assisted in the investigation opened after the fire at Bindeuil, “this amounts to privatizing the police in favor of Andra. From a strict legal point of view this is very questionable because in France the police are a monopoly of the state and the Constitution provides that sovereignty is exercised by the people and for the people. ”
These debates also animated Andra employees when the agreement with the DGGN was signed. An internal source tells us that “that posed questions”: “Why is Andra paying when it is a public establishment?
Far from being anecdotal, the tens of millions of euros per year disbursed by Andra to pay for the presence of the gendarme squadron represents a significant sum. In 2018, the agency’s net profit amounted to only 11.5 million euros, mainly made up of research tax credit, as indicated in the establishment’s annual financial report. Cigeo related expenses are directly funded by the three major nuclear players: EDF and Orano, two private companies, and CEA, a public research establishment. In 2018, they poured 212 million euros into the landfill project.
The gendarmes paid by Andra who crisscross the territory are not the same as those who are investigating for justice as part of the judicial information and have listened for months to opponents of Andra. But they belong to the same institution. This mix of genres questions the impartiality of police work. Then does not public power find itself in a situation of insincerity towards the citizens whom it controls with such relentlessness? The gendarmes, Andra, justice, political leaders on one side; opponents of the other. Two tight-knit camps, one facing the other, like in a war situation.
https://reporterre.net/A-Bure-l-agence-des-dechets-nucleaires-se-paie-des-gendarmes
French state-controlled utility EDF has to inspect valve leaks at Flamanville, Taishan, Finland nuclear sites
Flamanville and Taishan nuclear sites after valve leaks were reported at
Finland’s Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) nuclear reactor, a company’s spokesman said
on Wednesday. EDF was unaware of any major issues at Flamanville and
Taishan sites similar to the valve leaks in Finland, the spokesman also
said. Finland’s nuclear watchdog reported on May 25 valve problems in a
component involved in the cooling process at the long-delayed OL3 nuclear
reactor.
France goes back to its restrictive nuclear compensation law affecting Polynesian nuclear test survivors
The new law reintroduces the need for every claimant to prove a minimum exposure to radiation for a compensation claim to be accepted.
It was approved by a joint commission of the National Assembly and the Senate which met after last week’s rejection of the text in the Senate.
The National Assembly had earlier voted for the law, and in a first reading, the Senate had initially also approved it but then acceded to amendments.
The French Polynesian members of the legislature have not been in Paris since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and couldn’t take part in the discussion of the proposed law.
The compensation law clause defining the minimum exposure had been removed in 2017 because almost all compensation claims kept being rejected.
However, in 2018 the government changed its mind and reintroduced the restrictions as part of a finance act to complement a health act.
This was challenged and in February, the supreme court ruled that compensation claims lodged before the 2018 law change were not subject to the new terms.
With the new law, however, all outstanding claims have to meet the same requirements.
Between 1966 to 1996, France carried out 193 nuclear weapons tests in French Polynesia and until a decade ago, France claimed its tests were clean caused no harm to humans.
The test sites of Moruroa and Fangataufa remain excised from French Polynesia and are French no-go zones.
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Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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