"Located" on the EPR site "immediately after" their intrusion around 5:30 am according to EDF, they were arrested then released and "will be summoned this afternoon to be heard by the gendarmes", specified to AFP Yves Le Clair, the public prosecutor of Cherbourg, in the middle of the morning.

Among them was the director general of Greenpeace France Jean-François Julliard, according to the prosecution.

Six other activists also chained themselves around 5:30 a.m. to tripods several meters high and a truck placed in front of the entrances to the site, according to AFP journalists on the spot.

The activists let the workers return on foot, but they left because EDF closed the site.

"We are applying verification procedures," said the nuclear giant's communication department without being able to specify when activity would resume.

"So much money has been spent on this dangerous technology" when "alternative" energies are available, Daron, a 53-year-old English activist, told AFP, chilled, with a large padlock around his neck. chained to one of the tripods.

Greenpeace activists chained to a tripod block an entrance to the Flamanville EPR construction site on March 31, 2022 Sameer Al-DOUMY AFP

"Neither fossil fuel nor nuclear, for peace", "nuclear, danger" could be read on placards in English above and beside him.

- "Pro-nuclear candidates" -

With these two actions Greenpeace intends "to denounce the irresponsibility of Emmanuel Macron and the other pro-nuclear candidates who want to build new EPR reactors when we see it with the situation in Ukraine, nuclear power is dangerous", explained Nicolas Nace, in charge of energy transition at Greenpeace France.

Behind him, the van parked in front of the site displayed signs "Nuclear: Macron irresponsible" or "+ EPR + fiascos".

Gendarmes in position behind Greenpeace activists who block the entrance to the EPR reactor site in Flamanville, March 31, 2022 in the Channel Sameer Al-DOUMY AFP

The NGO indicated that it was targeting more specifically, in addition to the outgoing president, the RN candidate Marine Le Pen as well as Eric Zemmour (Reconquest!), Valérie Pécresse (LR) and the communist Fabien Roussel.

EDF is building this EPR, whose construction site is accumulating delays and additional costs, alongside the two reactors in service at its Flamanville power plant.

This new "symbolic" action comes as President Emmanuel Macron announced on February 10 a program to build six EPR reactors in France by 2035, in addition to the one under construction in Normandy.

"The Flamanville EPR is proof that the myth of cheap nuclear power is not true. The bill has increased sixfold" in 15 years, added Mr. Nace.

Launched at the end of 2007, the Norman site is 11 years behind schedule and its cost has risen to 12.7 billion euros according to EDF against 3.3 billion announced in 2006. The Court of Auditors has estimated the bill at 19 billion in 2020 .

The placing on the network of the first kilowatt is announced by EDF for 2023.

Greenpeace activists block the entrance to the EPR reactor site in Flamanville, March 31, 2022 in the Channel Sameer Al-DOUMY AFP

Greenpeace France requested at the beginning of the year "a moratorium" on the work, "in order to conduct an independent assessment of the viability of the EPR nuclear reactors".

Since the end of the 1990s, Greenpeace has regularly entered the sites of nuclear power plants to denounce this energy.

This earned him prison sentences.

The Flamanville EPR is currently the only one under construction in France.

Three EPR reactors have already been commissioned in two countries: two in China in 2018 and 2019, in Taishan, and one in Finland in mid-March.

An incident led to the shutdown of one of these EPR reactors in Taishan in July.

© 2022 AFP