Paris (AFP)

The vice-president of the National Rally Jordan Bardella estimated that the shutdown of the Fessenheim nuclear power plant in the Haut-Rhin, scheduled for the night of Friday to Saturday, was "an ecological and energy assassination".

"Several employees have indicated that they refuse to initiate this interruption procedure, and, how can we not understand them since no rational explanation justifies this entirely ideological decision," wrote the head of the RN in a statement.

"While its high age is often invoked as a pretext for its closure, especially on the side of Germany which has been pressing for years in this direction, the site of Fessenheim does indeed present any security flaw", maintains the MEP .

"Emmanuel Macron commits France to a denuclearization of its electricity production, while this source of energy (...) in addition to being inexpensive, turns out to be almost carbon-free", adds Mr. Bardella, for whom "wind or photovoltaics do not today constitute credible and sufficient substitutes"

The far right official asked "not to close Fessenheim and to initiate a vast program of renewal and modernization of the entire French nuclear fleet".

Fessenheim workers are mounting pressure, threatening to defy management's instructions to delay the shutdown of reactor 1 of the dean of French nuclear power plants, scheduled for the night of Friday to Saturday.

The operation is supposed to start Friday at 8:30 p.m. and finish around 2:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. It would put an end to years of turmoil, debate and reports on the fate of the Alsatian power station, built in the 1970s very close to the border with Germany.

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