On a nuclear training site, trainees who see the future in pink

In Dampierre-en-Burly (Loiret), the company Onet Technologies welcomes trainees who train in good practices in a setting that faithfully reproduces the interior of EDF power plants. The closest, with its four reactors, is only a few kilometers away.

"This afternoon's intervention is the decontamination of a construction site", explains trainer Emeline Loiseau, 33, to a small group of six young men who come to improve their knowledge of radiation protection.

Undressing then putting on a complete white outfit according to a strict protocol, wearing a dosimeter to measure exposure to radiation: the small group strictly follows the rules that apply in a real power station.

The trainees enter the "controlled area" and, in a room where multiple pipes and valves intersect, tackle the cleaning of a perimeter contaminated by imaginary radioactivity.

Faced with this invisible risk, the trainer calls her trainees to order. “Did you do a dose rate before you picked this up?” she asks one. "We don't mix the wet and the dry," she said to another who no longer knows how to sort his waste.

"A perspective for the future"

Despite this difficult environment, everyone is already convinced of the virtues of nuclear power.

“We have to find an energy that is capable of providing as much electricity,” says Kevin Henry, 25, an employee of an EDF subcontractor specializing in scaffolding and thermal insulation.

For him, nuclear power is first and foremost "a lot of recruitment every year" and "a prospect for the future".

Yassine Ghayou, 27, agrees: "that's why I turn to the nuclear sector, for me there is long-term work, there will always be a need for this source of energy".

After acting assignments in other sectors, he comes to take a course on "nuclear common knowledge" to be able to work in a power plant. "I don't see any other reliable source," he insists.

Enzo Couteau, 25, also does not regret having left the building sector for a "slightly more formal" job. Today, he is in charge of work to reinforce the safety of French power plants decided after the Fukushima disaster (2011).

What does he think of the prospect of new EPRs, announced by Emmanuel Macron in November? "I tell myself that maybe I made the right choice and that there will be work until I retire!"

"Unsolicited applications"

Questioned after Fukushima or associated with the setbacks of the EPR site in Flamanville (Manche), nuclear power has not always had good press in the country which nevertheless produces 70% of its electricity thanks to it.

But a few months before the presidential election, many candidates see it above all as a stable and virtuous means of production for the climate. From Eric Zemmour to the communist Fabien Roussel, they promise the same thing as President Macron: new EPRs.

"It's good that we talk about nuclear power in political debates, because that's what makes it so that every day when we come home we press a button", judge Emeline Loiseau. "We need to know if the person for whom we are going to vote is more for or against".

This highlighting is also welcomed by a sector of 220.000 employees, who will have enormous recruitment and training needs if new projects are launched.

These new EPRs, "it's more attractive for us in terms of communication and even for employees, to come and participate in this nuclear development", underlines Elodie Volle, the HRD of Onet Technologies.

"I receive more unsolicited applications than before" and "when we go to recruitment forums today, we have a few more students who come to us," she says.