France has 18 nuclear power plants. IRSN engineers know every corner, every reactor. They participate in inspections and write opinions when a defect is found.
In the French system, the IRSN produces the assessments, but it is up to the ASN, the nuclear safety authority, to take the decision to suspend a facility in the event of a risk. The government wants to transfer powers from IRSN to ASN, citing the need to streamline the process.
This is precisely what worries the employees of the IRSN on strike today. According to them, the two-headed system would be synonymous with independence.
“Whether you are for or against nuclear power, there is a need for independent safety“, defends Hervé Bodineau, assistant to the director of safety expertise at IRSN who marches this Monday in the event.
The former deputy director of the IRSN himself sees, he says, a risk for nuclear safety: “Often, when we resume accidents, we always find causes linked, somewhere, to the control system, and therefore destabilizing a control system, in an incomprehensible way, is not good“, abounds Thierry Charles.
A lack of efficiency of the current system according to EDF?
On the side of EDF, no comment. But a recent report from the operator calls for fewer constraints in the control of installations:“The game of three (ASN, IRSN, EDF) can lead to unnecessary one-upmanship. It is the responsibility of the operator to affirm his convictions.
An opinion not always shared internally. By telephone, an anonymous EDF executive fears the disappearance of IRSN: “ We are more and more worried by considerations of production rather than safety; (…) there is this notion that any person or organization that could harm production is an irritant. And that’s what scares me.” he explains.
This afternoon, the Minister for Energy Transition wanted to be reassuring about the nuclear acceleration project and the rapprochement of the two structures. “This bill does not touch a single comma, contrary to what one might hear, of our nuclear safety procedures“, said at the podium of the National Assembly Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
His cabinet specifies that the merger could be effective in July 2024 and ensures that the new structure will be just as independent.