Parliamentarians and trade unionists from IRSN, a French nuclear safety expert, strongly criticized the safety reform carried out by the government on Wednesday, denouncing the vagueness of a bill carried out “at speed”.
In a context of relaunching nuclear power in France, the government wishes to merge by January 1, 2025 the ASN (Nuclear Safety Authority), the watchdog of power plants, with the Institute of Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), an organization of expertise and research, a project rejected by Parliament in May after being slipped into a legislative amendment.
“The bill is in the formal consultation phase, a consultation frankly carried out at pace,” lamented François Jeffroy (CFDT), for the inter-union IRSN, during a press conference at the National Assembly.
While the bill was made public on November 6, the various commissions consulted, from the High Energy Council to the High Transparency Committee, including the National Council for Ecological Transition, among others, must give their notice on November 30, said Mr. Jeffroy, denouncing the government’s desire to “merge at all costs”.
“In the same way that we asked clear questions at the time of the cavalier amendment tabled in the spring, we regularly asked the question of the intentions and the why of these intentions”, regarding the bill, declared the deputy from Seine-Maritime Gérard Leseul (PS), at the initiative of the press point.
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