Emmanuel Macron's nuclear policy is materializing.
The nuclear acceleration bill, which aims to promote the construction of new reactors, begins its parliamentary journey in the Senate on Tuesday.
It should be carried by favorable winds, since the objective of the President of the Republic is shared by almost all the senators, mainly on the right, with the exception of the ecologists.
Emmanuel Macron wants to build six new reactors and launch studies for the construction of eight others.
The bill aims to "save time" - up to 56 months hoped - by simplifying administrative procedures for the construction of new facilities near existing nuclear sites.
Concretely, the sites will be exempted from town planning authorization because the control of conformity will be ensured by the State.
The right of expropriation will be relaxed.
Or even work on buildings not intended to receive radioactive substances could be started before closing the public inquiry.
The next two EPRs should be located in Penly, in Seine-Maritime, followed by two others in Gravelines, in the North, according to EDF's plans.
“The objective of the first pour of concrete, which is very ambitious, is by the end of the five-year term, therefore 2027 (…) rather the end of 2027”, indicated Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Minister for Ecological Transition, during his hearing by the senators.
Their commissioning could be between 2035 and 2037.
Texts submitted “upside down”
“We are very behind on nuclear power”, deplores the LR president of the Economic Affairs Committee Sophie Primas.
For the rapporteur Daniel Gremillet (LR), this text “is necessary if we want (…) to have sufficient energy at an accessible and carbon-free price, and controllable energy”.
However, the senators regret that the texts are submitted to them “upside down”.
For them, it is the energy programming bill, setting the trajectories of France in each energy, which should have arrived first, before the two technical texts on renewables and nuclear.
The minister “hopes” that it can be presented in June.
The senators want to blow up "bolts": remove the objective of reducing the nuclear share of electricity production to 50% by 2035, impose the revision of the decree which provides for the closure of 12 reactors, in addition from Fessenheim.
France, which derives about 70% of its electricity from nuclear power, decided in 2015 to diversify its supply by closing 14 of its 58 reactors, before a reversal announced by the president.
"Across History"
The senators also adopted a series of amendments on “two major axes: simplify and secure”.
The aim is to integrate the risks linked to climate change in the safety demonstration of reactors and cyber-resilience in their protection against malicious acts.
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Government and senatorial majority will still find on their way the environmental senators, for whom "this new nuclear goes against the grain of history", according to their leader Daniel Salmon.
Ecologists will defend a motion to reject the text outright, which they believe puts parliamentarians before the "accomplished fact", while a public debate on the construction of new nuclear reactors is not over.
A solemn vote will be organized on Tuesday January 24 in the hemicycle of the Senate, then the bill will go to the National Assembly.
