The executive would like to merge the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), a technical expert, within the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), the policeman of the power plants.

But the deputies approved by show of hands an amendment by Benjamin Saint-Huile, of the independent group Liot, to preserve a "dual organization" between the Institute and the Safety Authority, unravelling all of this sensitive article of the bill to revive nuclear power.

However, the subject is not closed. The government can still resort to a second deliberation.

And the debates on the rest of the bill were extended until Friday evening at the Palais Bourbon, before a solemn vote on Tuesday, March 21, decided in the evening the Conference of Presidents, which brings together the leaders of the political groups and the main officials of the Assembly.

Demonstration of members of the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety against the disappearance of IRSN in Paris on March 13, 2023 © Thomas SAMSON / AFP

The parliamentary shuttle will then continue.

"We have proposed to the Senate, given the importance of the subject, to have a second reading," warned the Minister of Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher.

IRSN employees are cautious. "I'm very happy, but I'm wary of my joy because it's not won yet. The government must listen to this rejection," said François Jeffroy, representative of the inter-union.

On Monday, during a third day of strike, hundreds of IRSN employees marched near the Assembly, with slogans such as "IRSN dismantled, nuclear safety sold off".

"Precipitation"

In the hemicycle, the left protested against the "precipitation" of a reform "à la hussarde", a "dangerous proposal" according to ecologist and former minister Delphine Batho.

It is a "dismantling in order. We need this independence of research, within the IRSN", insisted the Insoumise Aurélie Trouvé.

Some votes of the majority, including the former minister Barbara Pompili (Renaissance), have also risen to the niche.

Maud Bregeon during the first reading of the nuclear bill at the National Assembly, in Paris on March 13, 2023 © Ludovic MARIN / AFP

"Without any impact study," "it's madness to throw it at us like that," she said. "I'm shocked."

Agnès Pannier-Runacher replied directly by tutoying: "You know perfectly well that this reform and this question were already initiated a few months ago".

And "there is no change, at any time, of any line of our nuclear safety procedures," she said.

Macronist rapporteur Maud Bregeon also stressed that after the possible merger, "the decision and expertise within ASN will continue to be separated exactly as they are today".

The MoDem, divided on the subject, wanted to propose a compromise amendment with a parliamentary monitoring committee of the reform.

The LR, "a little surprised on the form", look rather at the fusion with a good eye, "guarantee of efficiency" to "streamline the procedures", according to the deputy Jérôme Nury. "The sky is not going to fall on nuclear safety," he reassures.

"Not opposed on principle", the RN had mentioned an abstention considering the subject "not completed".

The disappearance of IRSN was decided during a "nuclear policy council" around Emmanuel Macron on February 3. It was announced on 8 February and then introduced by a simple amendment adopted in committee in the Assembly.

Objective: "to streamline ASN's review and decision-making processes to respond to the growing volume of activities linked to the revival of the sector", with the six new EPR reactors that the government wants to build by 2035.

This merger did not appear in the text, during the broad adoption in the Senate of the bill to revive nuclear at the end of January.

This dual ASN/IRSN system was created in the early 2000s. At IRSN and its 1,800 engineers, doctors, geologists, etc., expertise and research on safety. At ASN and its 500 staff, the decision, fed by IRSN's expertise, for example when a defect is found at a power plant or when a site must be authorised.

© 2023 AFP