its employees on strike warn of a weakening of expertise

The 1,700 employees of the Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) are called to strike on Monday 20 February. IRSN carries out technical and scientific studies on behalf of the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN). But this two-headed control system is considered too cumbersome and too slow by the government, anxious to see the new generation of nuclear power plants emerge from the ground within the deadlines it has set. He therefore intends to table an amendment to the nuclear acceleration bill on Monday, February 20, in order to remove the IRSN.

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The French nuclear safety system was born in the 2000s. Fruit of the long debates which followed the Chernobyl accident, it takes over the organization of the health authorities: on the one hand, a scientific and technical body born in 2002: the ‘Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN). Dthe other, a supervisory authority: the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), created in 2006.

A “complex” separation of activities

“For 20 years, IRSN has fulfilled its missions. Its work is rigorous, complete and honestpleads Jean-Christophe Niel, director general of the IRSN, before the deputies. IRSN calls on the skills of its experts and researchers. Ihe separation of expertise and research activities will be complex because these activities are sometimes carried out by the same people.”

It is precisely this separation that is aimed at by the government project which surprised everyone when it was announced at the beginning of February, according to François Jeffroy, CFDT delegate at IRSN: “The project consists in cutting the IRSN into at least two parts: on the one hand the expertise which joins the ASN, and on the other the research, which joins the Atomic Energy Commission. And that will weaken expertise.” He also fears that this project will disrupt the democratic dimension of the system.

“The current system, with a technical opinion and a decision, favors the gaze of civil society because it has access to the different stages of the process. This facilitates transparency.”

Francois Jeffroy

at franceinfo

Friday February 17; the IRSN board of directors voted a motion of alert, fearing a “paralysis” safety control institutions even as the government tries to relaunch nuclear power in France.