Parliament overwhelmingly adopts nuclear revival law

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credits: Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP 21:45 p.m., May 16, 2023

To facilitate the construction of new reactors, Parliament definitively adopted Tuesday the bill to revive nuclear power, by a final vote of the National Assembly, where the cause of the atom is gaining ground. A week after broad support from the Senate, the deputies voted the text by 399 votes against 100, with a coalition of votes from the presidential camp, LR, the RN and communists. Only the environmental groups and LFI voted against. The PS, which had opposed the text at first reading, abstained this time, after describing nuclear power as a "transition energy" towards renewables.

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"A major text" for Agnès Pannier-Runacher

The Minister of Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher praises a "major text" to "produce an independent, competitive and decarbonized energy", and calls for a "political consensus" in energy. In the morning, she brought together in Paris about fifteen representatives of pro-nuclear European countries, in order to weigh in the "energy strategy" of the European Union.

Technical, the French bill simplifies the steps to achieve Emmanuel Macron's ambition to build six new EPR reactors by 2035, and to launch studies for eight others. It concerns new installations located in existing nuclear sites or nearby, such as Penly (Seine-Maritime), Gravelines (Nord)...

The 50% reduction in the share of nuclear power eliminated

In the wake of the Senate, parliamentarians lifted a lock introduced in 2015 under François Hollande, and already modified under Emmanuel Macron. The text thus removes the objective of a reduction to 50% of the share of nuclear energy in the French electricity mix by 2035 (initially 2025), as well as the ceiling of 63.2 gigawatts of total authorized nuclear production capacity. To the chagrin of opponents of nuclear power, he is speeding up the future multiannual energy programming law, expected at best this summer.

"Everything was done in a mess. (...) Only this programming law could decide whether or not to revive nuclear power," said Insoumise Maxime Laisney. The NGO Greenpeace and the network Sortir du nucléaire did not fail to protest: "the government is therefore putting the cart before the horse and acts a forced revival," they denounce.

LFI and EELV will file an appeal before the Constitutional Council

Another sensitive point, the text toughens the penalties in case of intrusion into the plants, with a penalty increased from one to two years in prison and a fine of 15,000 to 30,000 euros. In the Assembly, ecologists and LFI have railed against the bill, insisting on the "tons of waste" of nuclear, and on the significant crack on an emergency circuit of a reactor of Penly, announced in early March. Julie Laernoes (EELV) denounced the "frantic bludgeoning to make the population forget the dangers of nuclear power and its technological and financial setbacks".

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Insoumise and Greens promise an appeal to the Constitutional Council. Both parties are campaigning for an exit from the atom and the transition to 100% renewable energies from 2045. But 12 years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, environmentalists admit to having lost ground in their "cultural battle" against the atom, like polls that show growing support for nuclear power.

LR deputies support the text

In the Assembly, a parliamentary commission of inquiry led by the LR Raphaël Schellenberger and the macronist Antoine Armand, openly pro-nuclear, pointed to a "political rambling" for 30 years on energy issues. Faced with the climate emergency, and after fears of power cuts this winter against the backdrop of war in Ukraine, "we must no longer have nuclear shame," pleads Renaissance MP Maud Bregeon, former EDF and rapporteur of the bill.

On the right, the LR support the text while criticizing Emmanuel Macron's "spectacular tête-à-queue" on the issue. As expected, parliamentarians did not reintroduce the government's controversial nuclear safety reform. But the executive still considers it necessary 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, despite the protests of the unions.

And in the joint committee, deputies and senators removed an amendment voted in the Assembly that aimed to prevent any merger by guaranteeing a dual organization between IRSN and ASN. This text on nuclear power follows a law to accelerate renewable energies, adopted in February.