the Constitutional Council judges the landfill project to be compliant, while affirming that the legislator must take into account “future generations”

The provisions of the Cigéo center project for the burial of the most radioactive waste in Bure (Meuse) “do not misunderstand” the rights of future generations “taking into account (the) guarantees” made, ruled the Constitutional Council on Friday October 27.

Three years after ruling that environmental protection does not stop at borders, the Wise Men go further with this new decision, affirming “in new terms” that “legislators must ensure that choices designed to meet the needs of the present do not compromise the ability of future generations and other peoples to meet their own needs.” The Sages affirm for the first time this intertemporal dimension of environmental protection.

This priority question of Constitutionality (QPC) was asked by anti-nuclear activists, local residents and environmental defenders. They wanted to check whether the waste treatment method planned in the clayey subsoil of Bure respected the constitutional principles, namely those laid down in the preamble to the 2005 Environmental Charter.

Validated by the government which declared it of public utility in 2022, the Cigéo geological storage project 500 meters underground has already completed numerous stages, although contested for more than twenty years. Latest appeal to date: the declaration of public utility was attacked before the Council of State by local residents, 14 local and 7 national organizations such as Attac, France Nature Environnement, Greenpeace or even “Sortir du nuclear”.

On September 2, a demonstration took place again under close surveillance and brought together several hundred people, local residents but also anti-nuclear activists of different nationalities (French, Germans, Swiss, Brazilians, Colombians) who came to denounce the “passage by force” of State.