On December 17, 2012, Maureen Kearney was found tied up in her home, her stomach scarified with an “A”… “A” for “Areva”, the company where she exercises important union responsibilities? Would she have been too interested in secret contracts concluded between France and China to build power plants? In 2011, she warned of possible technology transfers from Areva under a contract between EDF and a Chinese state-owned company, which could have posed a threat to Areva’s know-how and its jobs.
Two bosses, two egos for one position
Until 2011, the boss of Areva is none other than the ex-“sherpa” of François Mitterrand, Anne Lauvergeon – with whom Maureen Kearney is close. “Atomic Anne”, as she is nicknamed, has come up against Henri Proglio since he was appointed head of EDF by Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009. There are therefore two leaders, two egos for a single title: that of “French nuclear chief”. This war of leaders is at the heart of this extract from the issue of “Sensitive Affairs”, broadcast on April 11, 2022.
Things accelerated in February 2011, when Henri Proglio was appointed vice-president of a brand new strategic committee for nuclear energy. Areva then falls under the control of whoever wishes to dismantle it. Five months later, President Sarkozy confirms his desire to reorganize the sector by unceremoniously disembarking Anne Lauvergeon. The one who replaces her in such a strategic position, Luc Oursel, is an unknown. This surprise appointment raises questions: will he be able to cope with EDF’s ambitions and pressure from the Elysée? Part of his mission, as he presents it, is to “purge the management of Anne Lauvergeon“.
“It is at this moment”recalls Caroline Michel-Aguirre, specialist in this file (and author of a book-investigation on the Maureen Kearney affair, The Syndicalist, ed. Inventory), “that a whole lot of business comes out, [comme] the controversial purchase of UraMin, a small mining company present in Africa, which was bought out at a very high price and which will never produce uranium…“.
“A nest of vipers, betrayals, barbouzeries in all directions”
The journalist evokes the particularly deleterious climate which surrounds Anne Lauvergeon, “a nest of vipers, betrayals, barbouzeries in all directions, which it is difficult to imagine today“. The former boss of Areva would thus have discovered that her successor had hired a private detective. “Her husband was bugged; her toorecalls Maureen Kearney. There was a burglary at her house, nobody heard anything. It was… pretty hard for her.“
Could Maureen Kearney bear the brunt of her closeness to Anne Lauvergeon? “I didn’t put myself on the same level as hershe says. I was a trade unionist, I was an English teacher…“However, she too lives in a disturbing atmosphere: she claims to have received telephone threats a few days before the facts – facts long questioned by the courts. Accused of having invented everything, condemned for denunciation of an imaginary crime, Maureen Kearney was finally acquitted on appeal… without the perpetrator of the attack being identified, nor his possible sponsor…
Excerpt from “A strange news item at the heart of nuclear power”, a document to be seen on April 11, 2022 in “Sensitive Affairs”, a magazine presented by Fabrice Drouelle and co-produced by France Télévisions, France Inter and INA according to original broadcast of France Inter.
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