French nuclear love affair starts to cool

When the radioactive fallout from Chernobyl’s nuclear disaster drifted across the European continent in 1986, the French government famously claimed the clouds had stopped at the border.

This time round, as Japanese authorities struggle to bring the crippled Fukushima plant north-east of Tokyo back under control, the French public is not buying any such platitudes. A vast public debate has been sparked by the accident, calling into question for the first time in decades France’s heavy reliance on nuclear power.

The unease has been so intense that even the long-standing cross-party consensus on nuclear power seems to be crumbling. The Socialist party this week ditched decades of atomic allegiance to call for an exit within 20-30 years.

“There is a before and after Fukushima,” says Charlotte Mijeon of French lobby group Sortir du Nucleaire (Quit Nuclear Power). “The opinion of French people has radically changed.”

But it may still be too early for anti-nuclear lobbyists to claim victory. Opinion polls do not yet show a definitive shift and Nicolas Sarkozy, the president, was this week reminding the public of the huge advantages that nuclear power has brought.

With 58 reactors generating 78 per cent of all electricity consumed, France is the world’s most nuclear dependent country.

The reactors are the legacy of France’s determination to ensure energy independence given its paucity of fossil fuel resources. In the nearly 40 years since the decision to go nuclear, the industry has become one of France’s biggest breadwinners.

Energy prices are significantly lower than in neighbouring countries – up to 40 per cent lower than in Germany for example. The industry supports up to 200,000 jobs and it is a significant contributor to the trade balance through exports of equipment and energy and lower petrol and gas imports. The French Nuclear Energy Society estimates that it adds €20bn-€28bn of value to the economy every year.

For all these reasons public support for nuclear power in France has long been virtually unshakeable, even though the vast majority of people live within 300km of a nuclear reactor.

Yet Fukushima may force the first crack in that bedrock of support, and the government – which has firmly rejected the idea of a referendum on nuclear power – may yet be obliged to hold a national debate on France’s energy mix.

In the meantime, Mr Sarkozy wants to keep these concerns in check by ensuring he has a big say in the criteria to be used for the “stress tests” on Europe’s reactors, a third of which sit in France. France is resisting Brussels’ suggestion the tests are done by a panel of European experts rather than its own Nuclear Safety Authority.

Ministers have also clearly learnt the lesson of Chernobyl and are acknowledging public fears, though at the same time suggesting they are unfounded. The industry has also been careful not to dismiss public anxiety. The heads of Areva, the nuclear engineering group, EDF, the operator of French reactors, the safety authority and the Atomic Energy Commission were all summoned to an open parliamentary session on safety.

These efforts appear to have calmed initial jitters. But it is clear that in future there will be greater pressure not just on improved safety measures, but also for a reduction in nuclear’s share in the energy mix.

Few believe that France will ever quit nuclear power for good. Renewables remain too expensive and the industry too important to France’s economy.

“We cannot avoid nuclear power,” says Christian Pierret, who as industry minister from 1997 to 2002 proposed a sharp reduction in atomic reliance through a significant increase in renewables. But those technologies are not reliable enough, he says, to provide the baseload generation that France needs. “Our baseload will always be nuclear,” he adds.

Indeed, many are thinking there may even be a business opportunity to be seized for France’s new-generation European pressurised reactor (EPR) model, which appeared to be struggling to win export orders due to its vast array of costly safety features before the Fukushima accident.

With costs now likely to rise on all reactor designs as a result of Fukushima, there may in the end be little difference between the €5bn ($7.1bn) EPR and rival models. And if that does lead to new jobs and more exports, there is every chance the government will succeed subduing public unease, suggests Mr Pierret. “The French may yield a bit, but they won’t fundamentally change.”