Nuclear safety reform: the IRSN inter-union fears “a drop in the level of protection”

The Minister of Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher called on Monday to make the distinction "between the bill (...) and the work which must be carried out at the level of the ASN and IRSN management to implement in place" this new organization, implicitly calling on them to co-build this new structure in which they will merge, in front of the association of economic and financial journalists.

After consulting employees during a general meeting on November 20, the inter-union "reaffirms its opposition to this project", in a first official reaction to the bill, before it is presented and debated.

Its adoption “would lead to a deterioration of the nuclear security governance system and a drop in the level of protection of the population”, writes the inter-union, disappointed after the cancellation of a meeting planned for Monday with the Minister of Transition energetic Agnès Pannier-Runacher, to whom she had sent an open letter in anticipation.

Ms. Pannier-Runacher was to present the bill to the staff of the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), watchdog of power plants, and the Institute of Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), its technical expert, which the government wishes to merge by January 1, 2025.

The one-week postponement of this meeting aroused "anger" among IRSN employees, according to their union representatives, who saw it as a "lack of consideration".

“The one-week postponement is linked to scheduling constraints for several participants,” the minister’s office told AFP.

For the unions, this law will "degrade the quality of the assessment of nuclear and radiological risks", in particular due to the separation into distinct entities of different types of expertise.

Another subject of concern is the loss of transparency vis-à-vis the public, with the disappearance of "the legal obligation to publish technical and scientific opinions which is imposed today on the IRSN".

Finally, the unions believe that this reorganization will turn into disorganization of the system: this project, they underline, "will introduce major changes in working methods, relations between safety and radiation protection actors, statutes personnel”.

“We will not compromise with nuclear safety in our country,” assured Ms. Pannier-Runacher, for whom “this is a condition for the acceptability of nuclear power.”

She thus underlined that France, despite the risks of load shedding last winter, had not hesitated to shut down nuclear reactors to carry out checks, after the discovery of stress corrosion problems on certain reactors.

“We will continue to do so if necessary,” assured the minister, who however wishes for a more “fluid” operation of security.

The IRSN unions indicated that they had filed a strike notice for the morning of December 13, the date on which the bill should be presented to the Council of Ministers.