“Shipwreck”, “fiasco” … The presidential candidates Jean-Luc Mélenchon, (La France insoumise) and Yannick Jadot (Europe Ecology the Greens) blasted this Wednesday the new delays and additional costs of the EPR of Flamanville announced by EDF. The two contenders for the Elysee Palace also denounced the pro-nuclear policy of the quasi-candidate Emmanuel Macron.
For Mélenchon, a symbol of the “nuclear shipwreck”
“The nuclear sinking. 15 reactors closed and another postponement of Flamanville after already 10 years of delay. 300 million more in additional cost, “lamented Jean-Luc Mélenchon in a tweet.
“This joke has gone on for too long. This fiasco should serve as a lesson for Macron when he imagines creating new reactors throughout our country, without any democratic debate, ”added the president of the LFI group to the National Assembly Mathilde Panot.
Jadot denounces “a fiasco paid for by the French”
Denouncing an “ever more expensive Flamanville EPR”, the environmental candidate Yannick Jadot sent back to back Emmanuel Macron and the right-wing, far-right and Communist candidates all pro-nuclear. It is “a fiasco paid for by the French that Emmanuel Macron, Eric Zemmour, Marine Le Pen, Fabien Roussel want to multiply by 6 or 10! “, He argued, at a time when,” for lack of public investment in their housing, the French suffer from fuel poverty “.
“What costs 19 billion euros [d’après la Cour des comptes], is already 10 years late and still not working? “, Commented ironically the national secretary of EELV Julien Bayou.
A project that has lasted since 2007
EDF announced on Wednesday that the start-up of the new generation EPR nuclear reactor under construction in Flamanville, in the Channel, was postponed to 2023, due in particular to the Covid-19 pandemic, with a new additional cost of 300 million d euros which brings the total bill to 12.7 billion.
Under construction since 2007, the EPR was initially due to be put into service in 2012, but the site was affected by many setbacks and additional costs, and the initial cost has almost quadrupled.
The announcement comes as France prepares to launch a new nuclear reactor construction program announced by Emmanuel Macron on November 9.