It is not only in France that French nuclear power plants are arousing debate.
That of Cattenom, built in 1979 about ten kilometers from the Luxembourg border and near the French town of Thionville (Moselle) is under surveillance… in Luxembourg.
Two ministers from the Grand Duchy, Carole Dieschbourg (Environment) and Claude Turmes (Energy and Regional Planning), have just written to the (French) Nuclear Safety Authority to demand the results of EDF's analyses.
According to the revelations of the site Montel News, specialized in energy, which cites union sources, corrosion cracks would indeed have appeared.
In fact, the production of reactor n° 3 of Cattenom was stopped on March 26, for “preventive checks”.
On Wednesday April 20, EDF confirmed in a press release that "indications (of corrosion) have been detected".
This is the "second request for an explanation from the Luxembourg government in 2022, which had already expressed itself to ASN on January 19", recalls Roger Spautz, campaign manager for Greenpeace France and Luxembourg.
Other similar cracks linked to corrosion have been reported on eight other French power plants, including that of Chooz (Ardennes), also in the Grand Est.
“It is a new and little known phenomenon on which the explanations are not clear”, assures Greenpeace.
The Luxembourg ministers are calling for a quick meeting of the Local Information Commission (CLI) of Cattenom.
The Thionville public prosecutor's office was also seized of a complaint from four environmental defense associations which accuse Cattenom of polluting discharges during an "accidental overflow of a hydrocarbon collection system" in the Moselle.
For the prefecture, there was “neither fish mortality nor consequence for the supply of drinking water”.