Paris (AFP)

The French are insufficiently prepared in the event of a nuclear accident, according to local actors who want to involve the public more broadly in crisis exercises or to promote the distribution of iodine tablets.

"In the most nuclear-powered country in the world by number of inhabitants, the means implemented to protect the French are inadequate and insufficient", alarmed Tuesday the National Association of Local Information Committees and Commissions (ANCCLI) in a report.

"It is a cry of revolt", launched at a press conference Jean-Claude Delalonde, president of the ANCCLI.

This brings together around thirty Local Information Commissions (CLIs) attached to each French nuclear site.

France has many nuclear facilities: in addition to the 19 EDF power plants, there are reprocessing sites such as the Orano one in La Hague (North West) or even research sites.

Each location has a CLI bringing together elected officials, associations, unions, etc.

alongside representatives of the State and operators such as EDF or the Atomic Energy Commission, a research organization on defense and security, nuclear and renewable energies.

First target of these bodies: "the failures of the last iodine distribution campaign".

This campaign, launched in 2019, concerned 2.2 million residents living near nuclear power plants and establishments open to the public, such as schools or businesses.

They are located within a radius of 10 to 20 km around EDF power plants, the closer audiences having already been served in previous campaigns.

"With a failure rate of 75%, the results are severe. Of the 2.2 million local residents targeted, only 550,000 went to get their tablets in pharmacies", regrets the ANCCLI.

- Involve local residents -

These pills are however useful in the event of a nuclear accident: the released radioactive iodine binds to the thyroid gland, an organ essential for hormonal regulation.

Taking stable iodine tablets, on the instructions of the public authorities, makes it possible to saturate the thyroid gland, which thus can no longer capture or fix radioactive iodine.

For the ANCCLI, "we must get out of the grip of pharmaceutical lobbying" and entrust the distribution of iodine to the 1,600 mayors of the municipalities concerned.

In the entourage of the Minister for the Ecological Transition, Barbara Pompili, they say they are "aware" of the problem.

"The administration is working on the status of these iodine tablets, which are considered drugs, to see if they could be distributed more easily and widely," said this source.

Another cause for concern: crisis simulation exercises, from which the population is in fact "excluded".

"In practice, these exercises are reserved for authorities and emergency services", regrets the ANCCLI.

A finding however "exaggerated", according to a nuclear industrialist interviewed by AFP.

"There are local containment exercises and evacuation of targeted populations, such as schools," according to this source.

"It is time to develop an awareness of the nuclear risk at the height of the danger incurred", presses the association for its part, saying it wants to learn the lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic on risk management.

"Full involvement of residents in the exercises would prevent any movement of panic and considerably limit the consequences of a major accident", according to ANCCLI.

Concretely, it advocates a multiplication of realistic exercises with sheltering and evacuation to raise public awareness.

With, as for the distribution of iodine tablets, the need to rely on mayors and local information committees.

© 2021 AFP