According to a copy of his application for civil action, "it appears indisputably that the officials of this plant" in July 2018 "did everything to obstruct the inspection work" of this 51-year-old man, then engineer in the EDF internal inspection service since 2015 and who calls himself Victor in the press to remain anonymous.

According to his lawyer Etienne Noël, his civil party application was sent to the judge in Marseilles at the beginning of September.

Questioned by AFP, neither the Marseille prosecutor's office nor EDF wished to communicate this information.

In an email to AFP, however, EDF insisted "to oppose a formal denial of the accusations made against it and that of the management of the Tricastin power plant, relating to an alleged policy of concealment of events, general non-compliance procedures and the existence of intimidation towards the independent security sector".

Photo taken on February 15, 2019 showing the EDF logo on the building of the headquarters of the company Electricité de France, in Paris ALAIN JOCARD AFP / Archives

Today on sick leave after several suicide attempts according to his lawyer, Victor also claims in this document to have been the victim of "moral harassment" by a manager of the plant "at the express request of the management. of the central".

This executive of the plant, now in his forties, is the man whose complaint in 2021 against EDF denouncing a "policy of concealment" of the company in terms of nuclear safety, had resulted in the opening of an investigation against X in Marseille.

He calls himself Hugo in the media to remain anonymous.

The judicial information retains in particular "the endangerment of the lives of others" and "obstacles to the control of nuclear safety inspectors".

According to the new civil party constitution, the director of the plant at the time and Hugo "did everything to push" the inspector "to the limit and make him lose his cool".

According to the same source, Hugo said that the management of the plant had signaled to their hierarchy their desire to see Victor excluded from this audit because his previous inspection in 2015 had displeased.

"Behind, there was the issue of the authorization of the additional 10 years (of operation editor's note)" of the plant, assured Victor to AFP.

The inspection he was conducting would "necessarily have an indirect and potential impact (...) on the extension", according to him.

The Tricastin power plant is one of the oldest in France.

In 2015, according to the constitution of civil party, a sentence of Victor reporting a "lack of professionalism of the operating teams" of the reactor had been removed from his report by the management of Tricastin "in total violation of the rules enacted internally ".

© 2022 AFP