France must go “beyond” six new EPR reactors, declares Minister of Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher

Statements which come a few weeks before the presentation of the bill relating to energy sovereignty. France will have to go “beyond the first six EPRs” announced for the relaunch of nuclear power, announced in an interview with La Tribune Sunday the Minister of Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Sunday January 7.

Since the Belfort speech in February 2022, during which Emmanuel Macron announced the relaunch of nuclear power, the government has carried out a program for six new EPR reactors and eight as an option. In December, the Head of State had already opened the door to an announcement on these eight additional reactors “in the coming months”.

The minister thus supports these remarks. “We need nuclear power beyond the first six EPRs, since the historic park will not be eternalshe told the weekly. But the editorial [du projet de loi] remains technologically neutral: it involves undertaking, after 2026, ‘additional constructions representing 13 gigawatts’. Which corresponds well to the power of eight EPRs, without setting this or that technology in stone.”

Possible new nuclear fuel recycling capabilities

The minister does not close the door to going even further, calling it “good subject for discussion with parliamentarians” an objective beyond these 14 EPR. Furthermore, the minister declared that the question of nuclear fuel recycling infrastructure would be on the menu of the next Nuclear Policy Council (NPC), scheduled for this month. It thus does not exclude the fact of “build new capabilities”.