France reassess nuclear safety in light of Fukushima crisis

There are four nuclear power plants in the PACA region [Copyright: Michiel1972]

Following the dramatic scenes being witnessed at the Fukushima nuclear station, the French government has called for an audit of all 58 nuclear reactors in France. François Fillon, the prime minister, told the Assemblée Nationale yesterday that lessons were to be learnt from the catastrophe in Japan and that France would be doing all it can to improve nuclear safety.

The Autorité de sûreté nucléaire (ASN), a Paris based watchdog, has suggested that the Fukushima disaster should be considered a level six (‘serious accident’) out of seven on the International Atomic Energy Authority’s International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. However, many experts believe that the Fukushima crisis will not reach the same levels as the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, which still remains the only incident to reach a level seven on the scale. Sir John Beddington, the UK's chief scientific officer told the British Embassy in Tokyo that the threat of radiation remains in a 30 kilometre radius of the reactor.

The French government has been highly critical of the Japanese handling of the situation. “Let's not beat about the bush. They have visibly lost control [of the situation]. That is our analysis, in any case, it's not what they are saying,” the industry minister Eric Besson told BMFTV. His comments where met with the response from the environment minister who advised French citizens in Tokyo to leave the country or head further south.

Even French broadcasting companies are limiting their presence in Japan. Radio France has sent seven journalists home from Japan as a matter of caution with Europe 1, RTL and France Télévisions likely to follow suit.

Back in France the government is responding to concerns that its own nuclear facilities could provoke a crisis similar to Fukushima should a natural disaster occur, such as an earthquake or flood.

There are currently four nuclear plants in the Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur region, an area that is more susceptible to seismic action than the rest of the country. Despite this, the most severe earthquake to hit the region in the last 40 years only reach a magnitude of 5.0, and the most powerful earthquake to ever hit France was only a 6.2. Just the aftershocks in Sendai last week registered a higher magnitude than 6.2.

President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday stated firmly that France would continue to produce electricity by nuclear power. Currently 78 per cent of the country’s electricity production comes from atomic energy.

Whilst the situation at Fukushima has been a reminder to the world of the risks of radiation, the reaction of France and other European countries domestically has seemed to err a little on the dramatic side. Yesterday the German chancellor Angela Merkel called for seven nuclear reactors built before 1980 to be shut down until the state has carried out a safety review. Meanwhile, the German European energy commissioner, Günther Oettinger, said that the crisis in Japan resembled “the apocalypse,” and warned of further catastrophe to come.

The US energy secretary Stephen Chu, a former Nobel Prize winning atomic physicist, refused to speculate on what would happen at Fukushima but declared that a number of reactors were at risk.

TD