Paris (AFP)

Potential defects of nuclear components concern five reactors "at least" on the French fleet, said the president of the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) in Le Figaro on Thursday, recalling that he may decide to close if necessary.

EDF announced this week that the planned procedures had not been respected by its subsidiary Framatome during operations carried out "on certain steam generator welds", large components of power plants, during their manufacture.

"About twenty steam generators are potentially involved, it means a small part of the French nuclear fleet.But at this stage, the inventory of equipment Framatome are affected is not yet established," said the president of the ASN, Bernard Doroszczuk.

"EDF has warned that it will specify in a week or so the number of equipment affected" but "at least five nuclear reactors are affected by this problem, so it is not over," he adds, quoted by the daily.

The Authority plans to act in less than a month, with the possibility of "taking precautionary measures that can go until the shutdown of reactors if necessary", said Bernard Doroszczuk.

ASN can decide at any time to shut down a reactor for safety reasons. In 2017, it had thus temporarily stopped the four reactors of the Tricastin plant (Drôme) while work was being done on the site.

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