The new bill to reform nuclear safety in the context of the relaunch of the atom in France will be examined by the deputies from the month of February, according to the president of the Economic Affairs Committee of the National Assembly.
“This text should be submitted to the Council of Ministers around mid-December and, according to our information, come on the agenda for the public session in February 2024,” indicated Guillaume Kasbarian (Renaissance). The government is talking about arriving in parliament “early next year”.
This committee heard on Wednesday the president of the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), Bernard Doroszczuk.
The government wishes to bring together the ASN, the power plant watchdog, on January 1, 2025, with the Institute of Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), an expert and research body, a project rejected by Parliament in May after having been slipped in a legislative amendment.
For the boss of ASN, “the project to create a new independent authority is motivated by the ambitious development prospects that the government wishes to give to nuclear power (…). It is a question of adapting the control system to a new context in the face of unequaled prospects for nuclear development,” said Mr. Doroszczuk.
“The sooner the prefiguration process can be launched, the sooner we will be in a position to give visibility to staff,” he added.
The official was pressed with questions, notably by opposition MPs.
“How does the current system prevent us from achieving our ambitious nuclear recovery objectives? I still don’t have the answer,” asked Benjamin Saint-Huile, from the composite group Liot.
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