Margaux Fodéré, edited by Alexandre Dalifard 06:24, March 14, 2023

Since Monday, a bill has been examined in the National Assembly to break down a whole bunch of regulatory locks.

Among the measures proposed, there is the merger of IRSN and ASN.

But if the control and expertise tasks are well separated, there should be no threat to nuclear safety.

The government is putting the package on nuclear power and wants to speed up the procedures for building new reactors.

Since Monday, a bill has been examined in the National Assembly to break down a whole bunch of regulatory locks.

A controversial text.

Among the measures proposed, the abolition of IRSN, the Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety, whose teams would be transferred in particular to ASN, the Nuclear Safety Authority.

Despite the discovery for a week of cracks of unprecedented size in the reactors, this fusion would not a priori have any risk for nuclear safety.

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An American-inspired model

First of all, there is no question of eliminating the expertise carried out in the nuclear field, but rather of integrating them into the competences of the ASN.

It will obviously be necessary to ensure that these tasks are independent of each other.

But this system already works very well in the United States, recalls Emmanuelle Galichet, lecturer at the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts.

"You have control, decision-making and expertise with very specific roles for each of the three entities. And there it works very well, there has been no incident or nuclear accident on the reactors pressurized water," she points out.

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ANSES, a similar operation

The operation already exists in France, in another sector.

“There is another agency called ANSES, the Agence Nationale Sécurité Sanitaire Alimentaire Nationale, which has the same style of organization that this super ASN could inherit. And it seems that no one has to to repeat the work of ANSES on the issues it manages", specifies Emmanuelle Galichet.

And on the question of means, the entourage of the Minister for Energy Transition, Agnès Panier Runacher, affirms that they will be reinforced.