concerns persist after the announcement of the merger between IRSN and ASN

At IRSN, where the representative unions fought this project for more than a year with strikes and demonstrations, the disappointment is great. But should we, like them, fear a risk for nuclear safety?

The merger between the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) and the Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) is not limited to a change of acronym. By adopting on Tuesday April 9 a text establishing the creation of theNuclear Safety and Radiation Protection Authority (ASNR), parliamentarians have kicked off a cultural revolution in the French approach to nuclear safety. Objective : “fluidify” the sector with a view to relaunching the atom, a condition of the French energy decarbonization strategy.

Construction of six new second generation EPRs by 2050 (and a reflection undertaken for eight others), start-up of the Flamanville EPR (Manche), launch of innovative projects of small modular reactors (known as SMR), extension of the lifespan of existing power plants… At a time when nuclear players are working hard, this rapprochement poses new difficulties.

The separation between expertise and decision remains to be clarified

This is the point that has caused the most ink to flow: can we merge the nuclear policeman (ASN) and the institute which advises it on a technical level (IRSN) while guaranteeing the independence and the rigor of these two activities within a common structure? In its final version, the text adopted Tuesday, resulting from a joint committee, ensures that this concern is addressed. “A real distinction between expertise and decision will be guaranteed”welcomed the territorial planning and economic affairs committees of the Senate in a joint press release at the beginning of April.

So, “the parliamentarians extended this separation within the ASNR to all files subject to expertise (i.e. around 300 files per year compared to around 30 per year in the initial project)”, underlines the site Vie-publique.fr. “Major decisions, such as restarting nuclear power plants, will therefore have to be the responsibility of different personnel in terms of expertise and decision-making”he explains.

CFDT representative at IRSN, François Jeffroy, interviewed before the final vote, noted that “the addition of this guarantee in the text was welcome”. According to him, she remains “very insufficient”because not only “this distinction must be made file by file”but the conditions of this distribution remain to be defined in the internal regulations of the new structure. “However, on this point, there are far too many unknowns”he believes.

These unknowns have also allowed two radically opposed interpretations of the same text: its supporters, like the co-rapporteur of the text, the deputy LR Patrick Chaize, see it as “a real separation between the agents (…) likely to reassure the detractors of this project”, while his opponents, such as the socialist MP Anna Pic, see in the same document “the end of the separation between the college of experts and the college of decision-makers”. “I have never seen an expert capable of making decisions, and I very much doubt the ability of a decision-maker to develop in-depth expertise,” Senator Raphaël Daubet (Radical Left Party) was still concerned after the final adoption of the bill.

The opening of a reorganization project

“With this text, we are allowing our talents to focus on priority safety issues while maintaining our requirements in this area”, rejoiced the Minister Delegate in charge of Industry and Energy, Roland Lescure, on Tuesday. On the side of the IRSN unions, on the contrary, we point out the risk of a loss of efficiency linked to such structural transformation. How to harmonize management systems between a public actor and another under private law? “Given this reorganization, it is unrealistic to think that the new structure will be operational on January 1, 2025”estimates another representative of the CFDT, Tatiana Taurines. “These are in any case not ideal conditions in a context of relaunching nuclear power, where we expect everything to work as well as possible.”

Already, “resignations are sharply increasing within the IRSN”, points out the inter-union, “particularly in sectors where rare skills are acquired over many years.” Especially since “the vision of a career is very different between the two establishments“, adds François Jeffroy. “We build our skills over several years and develop valuable expertise for the Institute. Conversely, the ASN is for some of its officials – from the School of Mines in particular – a place of passage in their career .”

In these conditions, “the absorption of IRSN by ASN is already worrying employees who are ready to send their CV to EDF, Orano or other operators tomorrow, leaving us without solutions for positions which require very high experience. special”deplores the trade unionist. To stem a possible brain drain, the law provides for a catch-up in the salaries of public employees and contract workers to the tune of 15 million euros for the IRSN (and 0.7 million euros for ASN contract workers) .

A drop in the ocean compared to the savings brought about by this merger, according to André Thomas, snational secretary of the CFE-CGC in charge of the public sector. He denounces a choice motivated by “an ulterior economic motive, aimed at reducing the duration of the expertise”. Because IRSN investigations take time. An example ? The discovery by EDF of a corrosion problem on one of these sites at the end of 2021 resulted in the closure of several reactors during 2022 (up to 32 reactors disconnected from the network out of 56, at the end of August), plunging France into an unprecedented situation. Between April and November, the IRSN issued six different technical opinions to the ASN to inform the authority’s decisions. Back and forth between the two structures that the government wishes to optimize with this merger.

In nuclear power too, time is money, explains André Thomas. “Nothing else actually justifies embarking on such a project and looking at structures that work well, bring together roughly 2,000 people and represent a total allocation of 300 million euros”he believes. “But by reducing the duration of the expertise, we are talking about a gain of tens of billions of euros”, continues the trade unionist, who notes that a closed reactor “represents a loss of 100 million euros per day”.