The government is still seeking to merge the Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) within the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN).
This is a setback for the government: the National Assembly rejected Wednesday, March 15 in first reading the controversial reform of nuclear safety, some voices of the majority joining the left to oppose the “dismantling” of the Institute dedicated to safety (IRSN). The executive would like to found the Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), a technical expert, within the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), the policeman of the power stations.
>> Nuclear safety: why a merger project in the French authorities raises concerns
But the deputies approved by a show of hands an amendment by Benjamin Saint-Huile, of the independent group Liot, to preserve a “dual organization” between IRSN and ASN, unraveling the whole of this sensitive article of the nuclear revival bill.
A solemn vote next Tuesday
However, the subject is not closed. The government can still resort to a second deliberation. And the debates on the rest of the bill were extended until Friday evening at the Palais Bourbon, before a solemn vote on Tuesday March 21, decided in the evening the conference of presidents, which brings together the leaders of the political groups and the principal officials of the Assembly. The parliamentary shuttle will then continue, warned Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
“We proposed to the Senate, given the importance of the subject, to have a second reading.”
Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Minister for Energy Transitionto the National Assembly
IRSN employees are cautious. “I am very happy, but I am wary of my joy because it is not won yet. The government must hear this rejection”, underlines François Jeffroy, representative of the inter-union. Monday, during a third day of strike, hundreds of IRSN employees marched near the Assembly, with slogans like “IRSN dismantled, nuclear safety sold off”.
The disappearance of the IRSN was decided during a “nuclear policy council” around Emmanuel Macron on February 3. It was announced on February 8 and then introduced by a simple amendment adopted in committee at the Assembly. The objective is to “Streamline ASN’s review and decision-making processes to respond to the growing volume of activities linked to the relaunch of the sector”with the six new EPR reactors that the government wants to build by 2035. This fusion did not appear in the text, during the broad adoption in the Senate of the nuclear stimulus bill at the end of January.