The shutdown of the first of the two reactors of the Fessenheim nuclear power plant, on the night of Friday 21 to Saturday 22, is a victory for the anti-nuclear but a heresy for the employees and the inhabitants of the small commune of Haut-Rhin, who don't understand this decision.
Opposed to the closure of this first reactor, before the shutdown of the second on June 30, some employees threatened to disobey and not to apply the procedures allowing its shutdown and the decoupling of the national electricity network. But everything ended up going smoothly.
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" The reactor was disconnected around 2 am and we must salute the remarkable work of the teams, it was a very emotional moment in the control room ", we said on the side of EDF. “ The procedure went without any problems. "
This process was similar to a maintenance shutdown, except that this time the reactor will not be restarted, to the chagrin of employees and residents of the region, very attached to the plant, which generated nearly 2000 direct, indirect and induced.
Moved, Jean-Luc Cardoso, a trade unionist and long-time employee, spoke on behalf of his colleagues Saturday morning during a public meeting with elected officials from the community of municipalities, in front of the central. He thanked them for their support.
" Our colleagues had to perform acts for which we are not programmed, " he regretted. " There will be a ten year air gap (before the opening of the technocentre called to replace the power plant, note), it leaves you speechless!" "
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Saturday morning, forty elected members of the community council also posed with their scarves and red caps at a press conference. Gérard Hug, its president, explained that it was a way of " reclaiming a symbol of a struggle which, at another time, at the other end of France, made the government back down ". A reference to the movement of red caps in Brittany, which had pushed the government back on the ecotax.
The Fessenheim power station. SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP
The mayor of Fessenheim, Claude Brender, once again denounced the coming closure of the plant. He demanded that the state does not abandon this territory watered for forty years by the taxes paid by EDF and he fears the departure of hundreds of families with comfortable incomes: " From tomorrow, we will begin to feel the effects of the closure from the power plant, with population departures. "
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The elected officials were followed in the afternoon in front of the plant by pro-nuclear associations which want to " protest against this act of climate and environmental vandalism ".
This Saturday afternoon, the elected officials went to the central. SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP
Activists went to the plant this Saturday afternoon. SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP
Joy of anti-nuclear
" It is a very small victory ", considered during a press conference Lucien Jenny, of the collective Les Citoyens vigilants des environs de Fessenheim (CIVI), symbolically showing bottles of champagne which will still wait before being uncorked .
" The anti-nuclear, whether the French, the Germans, the Swiss, never gave up, that's why, even if it is only the beginning, we are happy to see the beginning of the end of Fessenheim, ”said Rémi Verdet, president of the association Stop transport-Halte au nuclear.
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Before a rally on Saturday afternoon in the center of Strasbourg, the French and German anti-nuclear associations had deployed next to the Colmar station a banner proclaiming " Long live Alsace ... nuclear free!" ".
Spokesperson for opponents of the dean of French power plants, whose second reactor is to be shut down at the end of June, André Hatz, president of Stop Fessenheim, said that in any case " in no case could this power plant meet to the post-Fukushima criteria, and could not pass its 4th ten-year visit ”, associating it more with a“ cash machine ”for EDF and the territory of Fessenheim.
Against the technocentre
Associations opposed to nuclear power now plan to fight against the project, confirmed Friday by the Minister of Ecological Transition Elisabeth Borne, of a "technocentre" for recycling radioactive metallic waste. " We will fight resolutely against, " said André Hatz, speaking of " error for the health of the inhabitants " and " political error " for the territory.
“ If we want to attract cutting-edge companies, the technocentre project is to shoot ourselves in the foot. We get nuclear power out the door, we bring it in through the window, ”protested Daniel Reininger, president of the Alsace Nature federation. " It is the first defeat in France of the nuclear lobby but it is still very valiant. [...] To think that the beast is dead would be wrong, "wanted to warn Mr. Reininger.
