Familiar with energy subjects, Pierre-Marie Abadie has been proposed by the government to take the helm of the future nuclear safety authority, which he will first have the delicate task of organizing at the end of a bitterly contested reform. The President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron plans to appoint Pierre-Marie Abadie, on the proposal of the Prime Minister, the Elysée announced Monday May 27.
Current director general of the National Radioactive Waste Management Agency (Andra), Pierre-Marie Abadie would first take the helm of the current Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) and would also be responsible for a mission of prefiguring the future Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection Authority (ASNR), single authority which will replace the ASN and of which it would take the lead from its creation on January 1, 2025.
The President of the National Assembly and the President of the Senate have been informed of this nomination project, the interested committees of the two chambers having to decide, indicated the Presidency of the Republic. Pierre-Marie Abadie, if appointed, would replace Bernard Doroszczuk as president of the ASN, whose non-renewable mandate ends on November 12.
“Incomprehension”
Until then, his task will be to lead the preparation work for the future ASNR, resulting from the contested merger between the ASN, the policeman of nuclear power plants, and the IRSN, the expert institute of the sector, both born in the early 2000s lessons from the Chernobyl accident. For this mission, he will be “placed with Mr. Doroszczuk”, assured ASN on Monday.
The creation in January 2025 of the ASNR, decided at the Elysée, was approved in Parliament at the beginning of April, after more than a year of protests, from unions but also from experts and associations. The law, which aims to “streamline” decisions to revive nuclear power, was promulgated on May 22.
While the reorganization remains to be defined via future internal regulations, the inter-union CGT-CFDT-CFE CGC of the IRSN demanded the “rapid appointment” of a “prefigurator”, sufficiently “neutral” to “arbitrate the disagreements existing on several subjects between the IRSN and the ASN”.
The internal regulations must in particular set “the terms of distinction” between the agents responsible for assessing the files and those responsible for making the final decision, indicates the law, a distinction considered essential to security by experts on the subject. “During the legislative work on the merger of the ASN and the IRSN, I committed to ensuring that a precursor would be quickly appointed. Following the promulgation of the law last week, this is now done with the appointment of Pierre-Marie Abadie”, declared Monday the Minister of Industry, Roland Lescure.
He carried Cigeo
At the head of Andra since October 2014, Pierre-Marie Abadie’s mission was notably to lead Cigeo, a project for the deep burial of the most radioactive waste from the French nuclear fleet. This contested project is being tested and researched in an underground laboratory in Bure in the Meuse. Its formal request for creation authorization was submitted in January 2023 to the ASN, which must conduct a long investigation phase over several years.
François Jeffroy, CFDT representative, expressed on Monday, for the IRSN inter-union, his “incomprehension” at this apparent “conflict of interest”. On the other hand, it is “positive that a precursor could have been appointed who does not come from the ASN and who has not until now been part of this reform. We hope that he will allow us to start at work, in a climate of listening,” he added.
General Engineer of Mines, Pierre-Marie Abadie had previously been director of energy for seven years at the General Directorate of Energy and Climate (DGEC) of the Ministry of Ecology. His career also took him to the Ministry of Defense, where he was advisor for industrial affairs, and to the General Directorate of the Treasury.